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.
On Miyajima, this garden erosion-control works rebuilt a typhoon-hit valley as fieldstone dams and pools, Japan's first postwar civil-engineering cultural property.
An early Showa tea pavilion on the Ota family estate in Saijo, Higashihiroshima, joined by corridors to the main house and annex, and a woven ajiro tea room ceiling.
An early Showa reception wing in the corner of the Ota family estate in Saijo, Higashihiroshima, with glazed doors to the garden and a formal alcove between shelves.
An early Showa storehouse on the Ota family estate in Saijo, Higashihiroshima, with plaster walls, a namako-kabe tile base, and a south gable trimmed with hoods.
An early Showa yakuimon gate and 33 metres of tile-capped fences on the north side of the Ota family estate in Saijo, Higashihiroshima, best seen from the lane.
A c.1929 shop-house of a former distiller on a Shiraichi corner, with projecting eaves, a glass-lit earth passage and upstairs rooms once open behind storm shutters.
A c.1929 single-storey workshop of a shochu and mirin maker in Shiraichi, with a lees room, sunken kettle pit and woodstore under an exposed king post truss roof.
A c.1929 annex linked to the main house by a 2-storey corridor: office and workroom below, paired reception rooms above with alcove, shelves and a built-in desk.
An early Showa sake wholesaler's house on Saijo's old highway, Higashihiroshima, registered in 2021. Black tile faces its upper storey, with wing walls at each end.
A 1920s-30s plastered storehouse set behind the Okada merchant house in Higashihiroshima's sake district, registered in 2021, with a coffered ceiling over its door.
Timber school building of 1929 in Jinsekikogen, Hiroshima, with a north corridor and south classrooms; one of the few timber schools left in the prefecture.
Early Showa well house at the Kanemitsu brewery in Kurose, Higashihiroshima, an open gabled shelter over a stone-curbed well that supplies the brewing water.
Early Showa brick chimney about 12 metres tall at the Kanemitsu brewery in Kurose, Higashihiroshima, in English bond with a corbelled top; a local landmark.
Early Showa gate and wall at the Kanemitsu brewery in Kurose, Higashihiroshima: a one-bay yakuimon flanked by tiled walls, 7.6 metres in all, forming the front.
Built around 1953 beside the main house, this timber wing wraps a broad veranda toward a garden by Shigemori Mirei, its sukiya rooms planned as one with the view.
A small early Showa laboratory in front of Kamotsuru's No. 2 Brewhouse in Saijo: a clapboard building with two rooms, each entered under a gently curved gable.
Early Showa brick chimney of Kamotsuru's No. 8 Brewhouse in Saijo: 16.9 m of English bond in steel bands with a ladder, the brand name lettered on three faces.
The early Showa studio of Nihonga painter Kodama Kibo, moved from Sendagi in Tokyo to Kamotsuru's Horaian guest house in Saijo in 2005; refined and not open.
The 1927 head office of Kamotsuru Sake Brewery in Saijo: a two-story wooden Western-style building with a tiled hip roof, clapboard walls and close-set sash windows.
Villa of 1935 on Shimokamagari Island in Kure, Hiroshima, built by a construction magnate from Manchuria, with a tiled exterior styled on Chinese brick halls.