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.
The Matabei Residence Storehouse, built around 1930 north of the main house, stands on a granite foundation with a plank-and-plaster west face. Registered in 2014.
The main house of the Misaki family near Wakayama Castle, built 1935 to 1938, pairs a two-tier roofline and sukiya-style log interiors with a Western reception room.
The kitchen building of the Misaki family residence in Wakayama, built 1935 to 1938, is a plain hipped-roof wing set apart from the main house, samurai-house style.
The two-storey storehouse of the Misaki family near Wakayama Castle, built 1935 to 1938, turns its gable to the back street in an estate of samurai-house lineage.
The Karukayado Hall of Mitsugonin on Koyasan, Wakayama, built around 1926, links two Jizo sanctuaries by a corridor where the tale of Karukaya is told in pictures.
Built in 1927 near Miwasaki fishing port in Shingu, Wakayama, this timber hall wears a carved sunrise on its gable and still hosts whale-dance rehearsals today.
An early-Showa bracket-arm gate with flanking walls on the old Awashima road in Kada, Wakayama: carved arms, a flattened lintel, rear props and deep, plain eaves.
An early-Showa concrete wall, 8.2 meters long, on the old Awashima road in Kada, Wakayama, with black sumi, a white band and boarding to match the gate walls.
A 1937 two-storey annex of a hemp-palm merchant family in Kainan, Wakayama, named for its red-painted woodwork, with a chidori-hafu gable and a pale blue interior.
A single-storey retirement house of 1937 at the Yamamoto estate in Kainan, Wakayama, with red-earth gables, deep bracketed eaves and an L-shaped inner corridor.
Built in 1936 in Yuasa, a soy-sauce town, this steel-framed auditorium pairs a triple-arched porch with rhythmic ribbed side walls near the old quarter.
Built around 1933 by a Mio man who prospered in Canada's salmon fishery, this Japanese house with a clapboard Western parlor now serves as a town-run guesthouse.
A concrete gate and fence with washed-aggregate finish, pilasters and stepped coping front the Yushin-an house, a 1930s street face and Registered Cultural Property.
The Wakayama architects' association built this compact 1966 modernist office for itself, with tiled facades, a floating upper wall, and hidden rainwater pipes.
Completed in 1938 and modeled on the National Diet Building, Wakayama's prefectural hall survived the wartime bombing and still serves as the seat of government.
A 36-meter steel five-span girder bridge built in 1933 to carry the line across Oike pond, using seven-meter I-beams unusual for the period. Registered in 2014.
The longest bridge on the Kishigawa Line at 51 meters across seven spans, built over Oike pond in 1933, with cylindrical concrete piers and dry-stone wing walls. Registered in 2014.