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.
Shinzanso (Former Fujiyama Raita Villa) is a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property built around 1921 in Hakone's Gora district as the mountain retreat of industrialist Fujiyama Raita. The villa blends Japanese thatched-roof sukiya rooms with a Western-style dining wing, skillfully utilizing the steep terrain to create a varied and inventive architectural composition. Located within the nationally designated scenic garden Shinsenkyō, it can be visited as part of the Hakone Museum of Art grounds.
A sixteen-meter garden wall at the former Yamamoto Jotaro villa in Kamakura stacks earth and tile in nine courses on a cobble base, built with the tea room around 1956.
The machiai at the former Yamamoto Jotaro villa in Kamakura is a tiny tea-ceremony waiting arbor of cedar logs and bark-faced walls, built around 1956 and now registered.
The gate at the former Yamamoto Jotaro villa in Kamakura is a single-bay bracket of polished logs with a copper roof, a middle gate on the approach and now registered.
Discover the Sudo Family Residence Former Boiler Room in Zushi, a nationally registered tangible cultural property built by GHQ during the postwar occupation, preserving a unique chapter of Japan's history.
Discover Sunshodo Kura, the integrated earthen storehouse of a 1936 Kamakura-bori shop in Hase, blending temple, castle, and townhouse architecture into one of Kamakura’s most distinctive landmarks.
Standing at a corner in Sasamechō, Kamakura, the Sunshōdō Main Building is a wooden two-story shop-residence with a three-story tower, completed in 1936 by the local carpenter Nishii Kiichi for the Kamakura-bori carver Satō Sōgaku. The building fuses a Buddhist pagoda-style tower crowned with a sōrin finial, temple-style brackets and rafters, castle-style white plaster walls and warrior windows, and the layout of a townhouse merchant's shop. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2006, it is also Kamakura City Important Landscape Building No. 4 and a constituent property of the Japan Heritage 'Iza, Kamakura,' and continues to operate as a venerable Kamakura-bori shop today.
Discover the Nishizaki Family Residence in Yokosuka's Funakoshi-chō, a 1938 Registered Tangible Cultural Property that elegantly combines American Stick Style western architecture with traditional Japanese tatami rooms, perched on a hilltop overlooking Nagaura Bay.
A Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1937, this wooden chapel uniquely blends Gothic arches, Jacob's Ladder window mullions, and a tatami-floored choir loft — a one-of-a-kind fusion of Western and Japanese ecclesiastical architecture on the historic Tokaido road in Oiso, Kanagawa.
Discover the Yokosuka Uemachi Church and its affiliated Megumi Kindergarten, a nationally registered tangible cultural property in Kanagawa Prefecture. Designed by Yokota Suekichi, a disciple of William Merrell Vories, this charming 1930s wooden church features pointed-arch windows, a gabled bell tower, and a rich history of faith and community since 1903.
The Hachidan Entei is a gravity-type concrete sabo dam completed in 1928 on Mount Oyama in Isehara City, Kanagawa Prefecture. Built to prevent debris flows after the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, this 37-meter-long, 11-meter-high structure is registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property, celebrated for its blend of traditional stone masonry and modern civil engineering.
Located in Oyama, Isehara City, Kanagawa Prefecture, the Fukuromachi Dam is a gravity-type concrete sabo dam built in 1929 as part of erosion control measures following the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. Measuring 24 meters long and 6 meters high, this rubble masonry structure on the Fudosawa stream protects both downstream settlements and the ancient pilgrimage routes to sacred Mt. Oyama. It was registered as a nationally designated tangible cultural property in 2004.
Discover Yamanokami Entei, a gravity-type sabo dam built in 1932 in Hadano, Kanagawa. This Registered Tangible Cultural Property showcases early Showa-era civil engineering in the scenic Tanzawa foothills.
Discover Yuasa Bussankan, a nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Kamakura. This striking 1936 kanban-style building features scratch-tile facades and semicircular arched windows along the historic Wakamiya Oji boulevard.
Maekawa Kunio's first building, completed in 1932 after training under Le Corbusier. One of Japan's earliest modernist works, now an Important Cultural Property.
The sole surviving station building from the 1930 opening of the Tsugaru Railway, this charming wooden structure blends Japanese and Western architectural styles. Featured in Osamu Dazai's novel "Tsugaru" and now operating as a beloved café, it was designated a Nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2014.
Discover the Kazuo Narita Family Residence Storehouse (dozō), a registered tangible cultural property in Hirakawa City, Aomori. Explore the traditional earthen-walled storehouse that reflects the agricultural heritage of the Tsugaru region.
Built in 1943 at Arai Ryokan in Shuzenji, the Mizugura is a half-buried concrete vault ringed by a stone moat that can be flooded to protect its art from fire.
Momiji is a 1927 guest wing at Arai Ryokan in Shuzenji. Two rooms, a wide veranda, Kyoto roof tiles, copper eaves and bengara-red walls give it a quiet Kyoto air in Izu.
Yoshino no Mune, a 1935 wing at Arai Ryokan in Shuzenji, stands apart like a villa, finished in fine Amagi cedar. It is remembered as the wing the inn favoured most.