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.
This 1949 granite pier at Oku Kōmyōen faces the mainland across a strait, the boat landing that linked the Nagashima sanatorium before the bridge of 1988.
This 1938 concrete cable incline at Oku Kōmyōen lifted supplies from the wharf to the Nagashima sanatorium, back when everything reached the island by boat.
On high ground at Oku Kōmyōen stands a tiny 1943 concrete hōanden that once enshrined the emperor's portrait, a rare survivor at a Hansen's disease sanatorium.
The main building of the Okutsuso inn at Okutsu Onsen, Okayama, built around 1935, has a gabled front, lattices and deep eaves at the heart of the spa streetscape.
The Okutsu No. 1 Covered Conduit is a 122-metre reinforced-concrete channel faced in coursed stone, built in 1932 on the upper Yoshii River and registered in 2006.
The Okutsu No. 1 Aqueduct is an 18-metre reinforced-concrete rigid-frame bridge of 1932 that carries the power station's canal water across the Kirotani-gawa in Okayama.
The Okutsu Oro-tani-gawa Intake Weir is a small 1932 gravity weir, 4.2 metres wide with an arched sediment outlet, feeding a branch canal of the scheme in Okayama.
The Okutsu Confluence Basin is a 160-metre reinforced-concrete channel of 1930 that gathers surplus and tailwater from the Kamisaihara station for reuse in Okayama.
The Okutsu Kirotani-gawa Intake Weir is a 12-metre gravity weir of 1932 whose intake gate, revetment and arched inlet all survive complete in Okayama.
The Okutsu No. 3 Aqueduct is an 18-metre reinforced-concrete three-span rigid-frame bridge of 1932 carrying a trapezoidal water flume over the Yu-no-tani-gawa in Okayama.
A 1933 elevated concrete regulating reservoir for the Okutsu power station in Kagamino, Okayama, registered in 2006, carried on a grid of columns.
The smallest registered structure of the Okutsu scheme in Kagamino, Okayama. Built in 1932, this 4.4 m weir is 1.5 m high and feeds a tributary into a branch canal.
A 1932 wall at Kagamino in Okayama, running about 185 m in granite laid diagonally, topped by a 0.85 m concrete balustrade and pierced by a spillway tunnel mouth.
A 1932 overflow weir on the upper Yoshii River in Kagamino, Okayama. About 34 m long and 3.3 m high, set on granite bedrock, with a curving stepped fish ladder.
A 1932 reinforced concrete aqueduct at Kagamino in Okayama, carrying the Okutsu headrace over the Orodani River on three 6.1 m bays with outward-flaring piers.
The Kamisaibara Power Station Akawase River Intake Weir of 1930 is a 12 metre gravity weir on bedrock, faced in diagonally coursed granite, with a debris screen.
The Kamisaibara Power Station Ikego River Intake Weir of 1930 stands 3.1 metres high on the crest of a steep rock slope, with an arched sand flush outlet.
At 78 square metres, the Kamisaibara Power Station Ikego Channel Settling Basin of 1930 is the smallest of this station's nine registered structures on the Yoshii.
Built in 1930, the Kamisaibara Power Station Confluence Basin joins river water with the tailrace of an upstream station across 694 square metres of concrete.
The Kamisaibara Power Station Head Tank of 1930 ends the main channel, regulating flow to the powerhouse across 497 square metres of roughly triangular pond.