Shōwa

Sakado Bridge in Nakagawa Village, Nagano, is a 1933 reinforced concrete arch bridge designated a National Important Cultural Property in 2020. With a record 70-meter span and stunning cherry blossom views, it stands as a masterpiece of early Showa civil engineering.

The Ueda St. Michael and All Angels Church in Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture, is a wooden Christian chapel built in 1932 in the style of a Japanese Buddhist temple. With its distinctive tiled hip-and-gable roof crowned by a cross and a three-aisle interior crafted from Kiso cypress, the church was registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property in 2021 — one of only two temple-style churches in Japan.

East of the Ozawa main house in Matsumoto's Hofukuji town, this early-Showa annex sets stained glass and coved plaster below tatami rooms, listed as a model of design.

The Former Karuizawa House (Former Matsukata Family Villa) is a nationally registered tangible cultural property in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture. Built around 1927, this elegant red-clad wooden villa once belonged to Matsukata Haruko — granddaughter of former Prime Minister Matsukata Masayoshi and wife of US Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer. With its gable roof, central-corridor plan, and signature Asama-stone fireplace, it now welcomes visitors as Café Suzunone, offering a rare chance to step inside a heritage villa.

Built in 1936, the Former Suzuki Dental Clinic (Kataoka Sanso) is a nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture. This Western-style wooden building features striking bengara red clapboard siding with white window frames, preserving the historic resort landscape of Japan's premier highland retreat.

Discover the Former Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank Matsumoto Branch in Nagano Prefecture, a 1937 reinforced concrete landmark with distinctive arched windows, now operating as HARMONIE BIEN restaurant and wedding venue. A Registered Tangible Cultural Property saved by a 20,000-signature preservation campaign.

Tucked into the wooded slopes of Aigatashiyama in Old Karuizawa, the Former Hamilton and Hard Karuizawa Cottage is a small two-story wooden retreat built around 1932 by missionary-architect William Merrell Vories. Originally owned by two Canadian Methodist missionaries — including the principal of Toyo Eiwa Jogakuin — this hidden gem was rediscovered, faithfully restored, and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2015. Though privately held, it stands as a rare witness to the origins of Karuizawa as Japan's first international resort.

Standing in the Shimadachi district of Matsumoto City in Nagano Prefecture, the Former Yokouchi Clinic is a single-story wooden combined clinic-and-residence built in 1932 and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in December 2024. Its elegant fusion of a Western-style clinic wing and a traditional Japanese residence offers a rare window into early Showa-era regional medicine and architectural culture.

Tucked away in Uematsu, Nagano City, Kinshi Kaikan is a graceful two-story wooden schoolhouse built in 1939 as the main hall of Nagano Prefectural Middle School. With its tile-clad central tower crowned by a pyramidal roof and symmetrical wings extending outward, the building is said to evoke the flight of the legendary golden kite (kinshi). Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property of Japan, it preserves the elegance of early Showa-era school architecture.

Built in 1933 over the dramatic Kumeji Gorge along the Sai River in Nagano City, Kumejibashi is an elegant reinforced concrete arch bridge clad in local teppei stone. Celebrated in the Nagano prefectural anthem and steeped in folklore, it was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2021.

An early-Showa fermentation storehouse at Sakai Meijo brewery in Chikuma, Nagano, pairing a mud-walled body with a Western king-post roof truss. Registered 2003.

Built in 1938 in Sakuho, Nagano, Sakae Bridge is Japan's longest-span prewar concrete Lohse arch, designed by Nakajima Takeshi, who pioneered the form.

A sukiya-style ryokan wing designed in 1932 by Arata Endo, who assisted Frank Lloyd Wright. It shaped the modern Japanese inn and now hosts guests as Honenmushi.

Discover the Shinano Educational Society Lifelong Learning Center in Azumino, Nagano — a 1929 wooden Gothic Revival building, nationally registered cultural property, embodying Nagano's renowned tradition of educational devotion.

Built in 1938 in Iida City's former samurai district of Naka-no-machi, the Shimoina Educational Hall is a wooden two-story Western-style building marked by a central Mansard gable, paired dormer windows, and pale-blue weatherboard walls. One of the few pre-war buildings to survive the great Iida fire of 1947, it was designated a Nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2014 and still serves as the active headquarters of the Shimoina Educational Association, founded in 1879. It stands quietly along Shunso-dori, a street named after the celebrated Meiji-era painter Hishida Shunso.

Quietly facing Lake Suwa in Nagano, Suwako Hotel Geihinkan is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property completed in 1928 by the Katakura silk dynasty. This wooden two-story villa pairs a Spanish-style exterior with a hybrid interior — Western rooms downstairs, Japanese rooms upstairs — finished with Italian marble and Taiwanese cypress. Discover one of early-Showa Japan's finest private villas, alongside its neighbour Katakura-kan.

Located in Suwa City, Nagano Prefecture, the Seiko Epson Founding Memorial Hall (former Daiwa Kogyo Office) is a wooden two-story building completed in October 1945 as the office of Daiwa Kogyo Limited and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in February 2023. Built from timber salvaged from local agar warehouses during the postwar shortages, it is valued both as a vivid record of emergency postwar construction and as the birthplace of Japan's modern wristwatch industry. Now open to the public as the Founding Memorial Hall of the Epson Museum Suwa, the building lets visitors experience the spirit of "sincere effort" championed by founder Hisao Yamazaki and trace the journey from this modest office to world-changing innovations such as the first quartz wristwatch and the first compact digital printer.

A tiny iron-roofed shed of 8.4 square metres covering the founding-era round well at the Takeshige brewery in Motai, where soft Mt. Tateshina water begins its work.

A tall early-Showa storehouse at the north edge of the Takeshige brewery in Motai, built to season the timber for its sake barrels and marking the compound's growth.

An early-Showa rice-polishing house at the Takeshige brewery in Motai, set where waterways meet and once driven by a wheel on the roadside channel to mill the rice.