Shōwa
昭和Browse Japan’s cultural heritage from the Shōwa period (1926 – 1989). Filter by prefecture, type, and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
Koryuji Temple Memorial Tablet Hall in Hakodate, built in 1933, echoes the Main Hall roof and keeps parishioners' tablets on a timber floor and a concrete basement.
The former office of Kobayashi Sake Brewery in Kuriyama, Hokkaido, a tiled concrete building of 1944, is now the Kitanonishiki Memorial Hall, open to visitors.
The former rice mill of Kobayashi Sake Brewery in Kuriyama, Hokkaido, a 45-metre timber building of 1953 with a brick base, now serves as Natsukashi Hall.
A 1937 wooden clubhouse in Sapporo's Chuo Ward, built by Mitsubishi Mining onto a Meiji residence. Half-timbered gables, round windows, free entry until 22:00.
Designed by Naito Tachu and opened in 1957, this 144-metre steel tower closes the east end of Odori Park. Registered as a cultural property in March 2025.
Registered in 2006, the 1934 platform at JR Otaru Station stands at second-floor level: 118 metres of concrete under a canopy of old steel rails, above two tunnels.
Completed in 1934 and registered in 2006, the JR Otaru Station Main Building pairs a top-lit central hall and 333 glass lamps with a plan shaped by a harbour slope.
Built in 1941 for a sawmill executive on Furano's main street, this low house uses local timber under a shallow hip-and-gable roof. Registered in 2024; not open.
Junseiji Main Hall, built in 1935 in the Hokkaido forestry town of Tsubetsu, pairs a plain gable roof with deep interior beams and a carved transom. Registered 2007.
Chemist Suginome Harusada built this Tudor-style Sapporo house in 1933. The city's first with central heating, it remains a home, viewable only from the pavement.
A brick school in Ashibetsu, Hokkaido, rebuilt in 1954 after a fire with funds from a Mitsui colliery. Its 106-metre classroom range holds 36 rooms. Registered 2008.
A timber gymnasium of 1954 beside the brick Raijo school in Ashibetsu, Hokkaido. Its two-hinged trusses span the hall without columns. Registered in 2008.
The Ferris wheel of Kodomo no Kuni in Hakodate Park, Hokkaido, built in 1950 and moved here in 1965, is Japan's oldest surviving wheel and still gives rides.
The Hakodate YWCA Hall, built around 1928 as a private house, is a timber building with an asymmetrical form, decorated gables and a curved canopy over the door.
The Rusutsu Mountain Lodge of Hinoki Shinyaku in Hokkaido, a company retreat of 1972 with walls of brick and stone, is Shirai Seiichi's only building on the island.
Prairie House in Hakodate, the former Sada House of 1928, is a Wright-style house by Wright's pupil Tanoue Yoshiya, with deep eaves and an octagonal plan.
A 1935 reinforced-concrete hall in the precinct of Hokkaido Gokoku Shrine, Asahikawa, built as the Army 7th Division's memorial museum and registered in 2015.
By Mankei Pond below Mount Soranuma, this 1928 log lodge was designed by Swiss architect Max Hinder at Prince Chichibu's wish. It sleeps up to thirty in Alpine style.
In Hokkaido University's Tomakomai forest, this 1935 former specimen store joins a buttressed, chapel-like block to a barn-like wing with a gambrel roof and dormers.
In Nibutani, Biratori, the former Munro Residence was the anthropologist's own home and clinic, a three-story mansard-roofed clapboard house, now a research base.