Shōwa

Standing in a quiet corner of Inuyama's preserved castle town in Aichi Prefecture, Enmyoji Sanmon is a four-pillar gate built in 1937 by the eleventh-generation master carpenter Ito Heizaemon. Featuring a copper-plated gabled roof crowned by an arched karahafu and lavishly decorated with tiered rainbow beams and frog-leg struts, this finely crafted gate was designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2012. With a 300-year-old weeping cherry blooming just within its threshold, it offers one of Inuyama's most memorable views.

The Otani Family Residence Rice Storehouse in Toyokawa, Aichi is a remarkable two-story reinforced concrete granary built in 1928. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2017, this compact 23m² structure features a distinctive vault ceiling and reflects the modernization of rural Japanese agricultural architecture during the early Showa era.

The Oriental Building Rooftop Ferris Wheel, located atop Nagoya Mitsukoshi Sakae department store, is the oldest surviving rooftop Ferris wheel in Japan. Built in 1956 and designated as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, it preserves the memory of Japan's beloved postwar department store rooftop amusement parks.

In Fuso, Aichi, the 1934 belfry of Kakuo-ji is a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property: one bay square, packed with dense brackets and a painted ceiling.

Kakujoro Main Building, a 1936 restaurant-inn in the old port of Fukue on the Atsumi Peninsula, became Tahara's first Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2022.

A Registered Tangible Cultural Property designed in 1930 by Swiss architect Max Hinder, this Western-style rectory stands within the grounds of Nagoya's oldest Catholic church, founded in 1887. Located in the Shirakabe-Chikara-Shuki Townscape Preservation District, it is a precious example of early Showa-era colonial-style architecture.

The 1928 main hall of Kijo Elementary School in Kariya, Aichi, is a reinforced-concrete building by Onaka Hajime on the old castle grounds, now a free local museum.

Along the west and south of the Kawarada Residence in Nagoya runs a concrete retaining wall faced with coursed Oya stone, capped and crowned with a clipped hedge.

At the south edge of the Kawarada Residence in Nagoya, a 1938 tiled wall steps down the slope in three stages to a recessed sliding-door gate with carved transoms.

At the cut northwest corner of the Kawarada Residence in Nagoya, a 1938 bracket-arm gate and tiled earthen wall form the formal street face of a Showa garden house.

The Former Head Office of Kankyo Mirin in Kanie, Aichi Prefecture, is a 1937 reinforced-concrete office building registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan. As the first RC structure ever built in Kanie Town, this elegant Showa-era landmark features scratch-tile walls and terracotta entrance trim along the Kanie River.

A 1929 reinforced-concrete water tower at the former Okada Clinic in Chita, Aichi, stored well water for the clinic and home before piped water reached the town.

A Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Okada: a small 1931 storehouse from an army doctor's clinic in the historic home of Chita cotton, near Nagoya.

Built in 1929 by a retired army surgeon, the Former Okada Clinic in Chita joins a tiled roof to a Western truss and colored-glass transoms. Registered 2015.

A 1929 doctor's clinic in Okada, an old cotton town in Chita. A registered cultural property of mixed Western and Japanese design, now a working weaving workshop.

In Chita's old cotton town of Okada, this small 1929 storehouse served a retired army surgeon's clinic. Its street facade mimics cut stone; registered in 2015.

A registered 1929 wall in Chita, Aichi: 33 meters of arched reinforced concrete on a stone base, framing a doctor's compound within an old cotton-town streetscape.

A tiny 1929 hoanden in the grounds of Sanjo Shrine, Ichinomiya: concrete shaped like wood, built to hold the Emperor's portrait. It survived postwar demolition.

Near Nagoya, the north high wall of the former Kato residence doubles as a side eave of the main house, with lattice windows above for light. Registered in 1999.

On Nagoya's Horikawa canal, the Former Kato Shokai Building is a 1931 office built by a Siam trader and consul, once the Siam consulate, now a Thai restaurant.