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 1929 single-storey home in Ozano, Kakamigahara, with a tatami central corridor, a pyramid-roofed reception room and a half-hipped bedroom; registered in 2010.
Early Showa 2-storey main house of the Kojima family in Narukiyo, Kakamigahara: hipped-gable roof, 4-room grid with an earth floor, 13-mat zashiki, 188 sq m.
Early Showa earthen wall of the Kojima house in Narukiyo, Kakamigahara, running 18 m from the gate on a stone base, with washed mortar, green tile and white plaster.
Early Showa middle gate and garden wall of the Kojima house in Narukiyo, Kakamigahara: a 1.5 m log-framed udekimon gate and a 7.1 m copper-capped board fence.
Early Showa service wing of the Kojima house in Narukiyo, Kakamigahara, 9.7 by 2.3 m, lining up a well and washing area, bath and toilet behind white plaster walls.
A 1937 post office built on the Goto family's land beside the old Gujo Kaido in Gifu City, with clapboard walls, sash windows and a skylit office. Registered 2021.
The 1937 front gate of the Goto family compound in Gifu City: a light single-bay yakuimon with flanking walls and a lintel grooved for lost sliding doors.
The Komachi Sake Brewery Shop and Main House in Kakamigahara, Gifu, is a 1954 shop and home with black plaster walls, deep eaves and a cedar sugidama ball out front.
The Komachi Sake Brewery Gate and Wall in Kakamigahara, Gifu, is a 21-metre U-shaped wall on round stones in a tortoiseshell pattern, black outside and red within.
Rebuilt in 1948 after a 1921 typhoon felled the old gate, Shinryuji Temple Main Gate in Gifu is a yakuimon with a finely carved dragon strut and a lattice ceiling.
Early Showa guest wing at the Senzairo inn in Yoro, built out on stilts for the view, with glazed shoji and a ceiling painting on silk attributed to Takeuchi Seiho.
The Teishoji Temple Inari Hall in Kakamigahara, Gifu, is a small 1933 gable-front hall with a three-sided veranda, exposed posts and a carved frog-leg strut.
The Teishoji Temple Priests' Quarters in Kakamigahara, Gifu, is a 1933 temple residence with a curved-gable porch, a 16-mat hall and finely carved transoms.
The Teishoji Temple Shoin in Kakamigahara, Gifu, is a 1933 sitting room with a bark-covered cherry alcove post, woven ceiling and walls of shoji and glass.
The Teishoji Temple Purification House in Kakamigahara, Gifu, is a 5-square-metre open pavilion of 1933 with inward-leaning posts and carved gable struts.
The Teishoji Temple Treasure House in Kakamigahara, Gifu, is a 1933 concrete store styled like a log storehouse, now the Sadayakko Engikan with a glass ceiling.
The Teishoji Temple Main Hall in Kakamigahara, Gifu, is a 1933 cypress hall on a raised concrete stage, ringed by 8 panels carved with Sadayakko's miracle stories.
The Teishoji Temple Gate in Kakamigahara, Gifu, is a 1933 eight-legged gate with guardian kings, close-set brackets, fanned rafters and carved transoms.
Located on Honmachi Street in Takayama, Gifu Prefecture, Tengu Sohonten is a wooden two-story butcher shop built in 1936 and designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan. Crowned with delicate spires, decorated with a long-nosed tengu motif, and graced by an elegant corner veranda, this Western-influenced storefront stands in striking contrast to the traditional townscape that surrounds it. Built by local Hida master carpenter Nishida Kiyoshi, the building remains an active Hida beef specialty shop and offers visitors a rare glimpse of pre-war Showa architectural experimentation in regional Japan.
Step onto a graceful curving cobblestone platform at Gujo-Hachiman Station, where a 1932 wooden waiting room and a 40-meter canopy built from recycled rails preserve the atmosphere of Japan's early Showa-era rural railways.