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.
A 20-square-meter earthen storehouse of 1937 joined to the Japanese-style wing of the Uetake residence in Inashiki, Ibaraki, its mortar walls scored like stone.
A 1937 timber house in Inashiki, Ibaraki, faced in mortar scored to imitate stone, under a half-hipped slate roof with a semicircular pediment. Registered in 2007.
A single-story building of 1937 in Inashiki, Ibaraki, with a copper hipped gable roof, tatami reception rooms, a coved coffered ceiling and stained glass transoms.
Built in 1963 in Daigo Town, Ibaraki, Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 3 sets clerestory windows against doubled posts and braces. Free entry at weekends.
Former Uwaoka Elementary School Building 2, built in 1937 in Daigo Town, Ibaraki, spans 31 meters on king-post trusses. Registered in 2014; free entry at weekends.
Built in 1939 and registered in 2018, the Former Okada Elementary School Onabake Branch School Building in Ushiku is the city's last prewar timber schoolhouse.
An early Showa storehouse at Chikusei City, Ibaraki: 3 meters square, 9.9 square meters, clad in scale-patterned copper sheet. Built for the family mikoshi.
A steel-framed school hall of 1955 in Daigo Town, Ibaraki, its frame cased in timber and rendered, with tall windows set against round ones. Registered in 2014.
Built in 1962 on rising ground in Daigo Town, Ibaraki, this 92-square-metre timber room links by a bridge to the upper floor of the main block. Registered in 2014.
A single-storey timber workshop of 1951 behind the main block in Daigo Town, Ibaraki: one open room of 7 by 4 bays under sheet metal. Registered in 2014.
Built in 1951 in Daigo Town, Ibaraki: a reading room and a cooking room of 5 by 4 bays under a single stepped roof, 141 square metres. Registered in 2014.
A 2-storey timber schoolhouse of 1950 in Daigo Town, Ibaraki: 81 metres long, carried on king post trusses, with lapped board walls. Registered in 2014.
Built in 1957 at Saigane in Daigo Town, this 533 square meter timber school keeps its lapped boarding, mortar entrance bay and corridor fire door. Registered 2018.
A 42 square meter cookhouse of 1956 at Saigane in Daigo Town, with mortar carried over the eaves soffit and boarded ceilings against fire. Registered in 2018.
Built in 1964 on a terrace 3 meters above the yard at Saigane in Daigo Town, this 188 square meter block glazes both long walls for daylight. Registered in 2018.
The main house of the former Shizan Juku in Tsuchiura, Ibaraki, built in 1928 as a home and private academy of the Mito school, is in modern Japanese style.
Built in 1942 from standardised lumber and trusses, Former Hatsubara Elementary School Building No. 1 in Daigo, Ibaraki keeps its glazed south-wall transoms.
Added to Building No. 1 in 1960, Former Hatsubara Elementary School Building No. 2 in Daigo, Ibaraki keeps deep glazed transoms and its near-original fabric.
Built in 1954, Former Hatsubara Elementary School Auditorium in Daigo, Ibaraki holds one column-free room whose ceiling lifts toward the centre for exercise.
The Former Higuchi Hospital Inpatient Building, a wooden clinic of 1955 in Daigo, Ibaraki, shows modelled pilasters, a cross-shaped vent and tall narrow windows.