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.
Kada Family Residence Tea Room, built in 1931 in Wakayama City by sukiya carpenter Hirai Gisaburo, joins the small Furoan and eight-mat Gyogetsutei by a corridor.
Kada Family Residence Storehouse, a 1931 two-storey plastered store in Wakayama City, hides a Western king post truss and carries swirl motifs in lime plaster.
Kada Family Residence Torii, a granite shinmei torii of 1931 in Wakayama City, stands 2.2 m high before the household shrine with straight pillars and lintel.
Kada Family Residence Wall, an early Showa brick wall in Wakayama City, runs 31 m along the street, faced outside with green schist and finished inside in mortar.
Kada Family Residence Shrine, an early Showa household shrine in Wakayama City, is a tiny copper-roofed nagare-zukuri hall of fine cypress on a stone platform.
Kada Family Residence Roji Gate, an early Showa tea garden gate in Wakayama City, has a cedar-bark roof held by bamboo battens and woven bamboo screen doors.
A 1968 Western-style parlour joined to a Taisho farmhouse in Aridagawa, Wakayama, with mortar walls, tall glazed doors and a marble fireplace; registered in 2018.
An early Showa farm barn on the street side of a mikan-growing estate in Aridagawa, Wakayama, with plastered walls over boarding, used to store tools and sort fruit.
The Matsushita Memorial Museum at Kii-Fudoki-no-Oka, Wakayama, designed by Urabe Shizutaro in 1971, blends into a field of burial mounds with ancient motifs.
The former Kamiakizu Elementary School in Tanabe, Wakayama, now Akizuno Garten, is a long timber school of 1953 with an escape route to the hill and fire doors.
The former Kii-Yuasa Station in Yuasa, Wakayama, a timber station of 1927 with a half-hipped roof and gabled porch, conveys pre-war design in a soy-sauce town.
Built in 1934 on the campus of Kokawa High School in Kinokawa City, this 131-square-metre timber wing housed residential home economics practice. Registered 2023.
A 1929 concrete reading room at Toin High School, Wakayama, given by parents for the school's fiftieth year, with a columned west porch and a crest set in mortar.
A 36 m² early Shōwa cottage of a Hirogawa net-making family, said to have housed Toda Yasutarō's brother, with a curved roof and fan-rafter eaves; registered 2016.
An early Shōwa guest wing of a Hirogawa net-making family, with two 10-mat rooms in fine cypress and copper-edged eaves; registered in 2016, it is now a guest room.
An early Shōwa storehouse of a Hirogawa net-making family, a 5.9 m square with a heavy tiled roof and namako walls; registered 2016, it is now a guest room.
An early Shōwa household storehouse of a Hirogawa net-making family, with namako walls set diagonally on one side and in a grid on the other; registered 2016.
A 1927 reinforced concrete office in Wakayama City with an Ionic portico on a footprint of only 82 square metres, left standing after the 1945 air raid.
A 1940 Japanese-style house in Wakayama City with a Western parlor by the door: Spanish-tile gable, paired arched windows, and tatami rooms facing the garden.
Built in 1939 at the back of the Kiwata estate in Wakayama City, a white-plastered two-storey storehouse with big iron doors, a Western cornice and shaped brackets.