Shōwa

The Anyo Building, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property standing right outside JR Shinjuku Station's Central East Exit, is a 1968 modernist masterpiece featuring stacked, rotating octagonal floors designed by Frank Lloyd Wright scholar Shindo Akashi. Inside, the kaiseki restaurant Kakiden showcases exquisite sukiya-style tea rooms by Order of Culture recipient Yoshiro Taniguchi. Discover this hidden architectural gem where bold geometric design meets refined Japanese tradition in the heart of Tokyo.

Located in the Kyōjō district of Higashi-Iya, Miyoshi City, Tokushima Prefecture, the Kawai Hyakkaten is a historic general store that served the daily needs of one of Japan's most remote mountain communities in the Iya Valley. Registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2019, this traditional wooden commercial building preserves the commercial heritage and historical landscape of a vanishing mountain village.

Kita Pharmacy in Nishi-Iya, Miyoshi City, Tokushima Prefecture, is a historic commercial building registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2019. Discover the history and charm of this traditional drugstore that served the remote mountain communities of the Iya Valley, one of Japan's three great secluded regions.

Saikyoji's 1930 sutra repository in Mima, Tokushima, packs a dormer gable, a cusped-gable porch and Edo-period bracket work onto a plastered 47-square-metre store.

Senkoin Hondo is an early Showa-period Shingon Buddhist main hall in Awa City, Tokushima, registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2022. Discover its tile-roofed silhouette, tranquil interior, and the Shikoku pilgrimage region around it.

The Takahara Building in Tokushima City is a reinforced concrete Western-style building completed in 1932. Designed by Suzuki Teiji, the renowned architect known as 'the architect who built Nagoya,' it features scratch-tile walls and Romanesque ornamentation. The building miraculously survived the devastating 1945 Tokushima Air Raid thanks to its German-made fireproof windows and was registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 1997.

A rare purpose-built puppet playhouse on a Tokushima high-school campus, built in 1965 with a two-tier stage and box seats, home to a living Awa puppet-theater tradition.

Hikiji-do is a small wooden hall built in 1928 in Tsurugi Town, Tokushima Prefecture. As the 36th sacred site of the Habashikoku 88-site pilgrimage—a regional miniature of the famous Shikoku circuit—it preserves a local Buddhist tradition. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2017, the hall is notable for its hipped roof and distinctive front porch formed by an extended roofline.

Discover Wadanoya Honkan Shimomune, a nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property at the foot of Mt. Bizan in Tokushima, where the traditional Taki no Yakimochi has been crafted for over 400 years using the historic Kinryusui spring water.

Located in Nikko City, Tochigi Prefecture, the Ashio Copper Mine Telephone Museum (former Ashio Copper Mine Telephone Exchange) preserves the legacy of Japan's first private telephone network, installed in 1886. This single-story wooden building, built in 1951 to house the relocated Mato Exchange, is the only surviving telephone exchange of the Ashio Copper Mine and was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2016. Manual switchboards and historic telephones on display offer a window into Japan's modern communications history.

The Orihime Shrine Hall, located on the slopes of Mount Orihime in Ashikaga City, Tochigi Prefecture, is a reinforced concrete shrine building completed in 1937 and registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2004. Designed by architect Kobayashi Fukutaro, the vermilion-lacquered shrine is said to be modeled after the Phoenix Hall of Byodo-in in Uji, earning it the poetic name 'The Dragon Palace on Land.' As the guardian shrine of Ashikaga's 1,200-year textile heritage, it is also celebrated as a sacred place for lovers, a Japan Night View Heritage site, and one of Japan's Hundred Great Moon-Viewing Spots.

Tucked away at the innermost end of Itamuro Onsen in northern Tochigi Prefecture, Katoya Ryokan Yusenkaku is a graceful two-story wooden inn building completed in 1952. Together with the Main Building (1919) and the Annex (late Taisho to early Showa), it was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2016. With its gable roof, irimoya-style entrance canopy, and tokonoma alcoves of finely selected woods, Yusenkaku embodies the renewed confidence of post-war Japanese inn architecture. Discover the strongly alkaline 'medicinal waters of Shimotsuke' alongside a rare ensemble of three eras of ryokan design.

Standing in the heart of Utsunomiya City in Tochigi Prefecture, Catholic Matsugamine Church was completed in 1932 to designs by the Swiss architect Max Hindel. Its Romanesque Revival sanctuary, with twin octagonal spires and walls clad in locally quarried Oya stone, is the largest surviving structure of its kind in Japan and was registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property in 1998. Discover an inspired meeting of European tradition and Japanese craftsmanship.

A registered tangible cultural property in Mashiko, Tochigi, this wooden two-story building was constructed around 1929 as an annex of the prestigious Nanma Hotel in Okunikko Yumoto. In 1945, the then Crown Prince Akihito heard the Emperor's surrender broadcast here during his wartime evacuation. Relocated to Mashiko in 1973, it is now preserved as a small inn and peace gallery beside the Tsukamoto pottery kiln.

Completed in 1931, the Komeidaira Sabo Dam stands 13 meters tall and 34 meters long on the upper Inarigawa River in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture. Designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2003, it occupies the uppermost position among the erosion-control dams built during the Home Ministry era and remains a functioning monument to early modern Japanese sabo engineering. Hidden beyond the World Heritage shrines of Nikko, it can be reached via a scenic hiking trail from Takinoo Shrine and offers a rare chance to experience the industrial and natural heritage of the sacred Nikko mountains.

The Tanuma Residence front gate in Ashikaga is a formal single-bay yakuimon of 1935, set back from the old Reiheishi road with wing walls and a stone forecourt. Private.

The Tanuma Residence outer wall in Ashikaga runs 84 meters along the old Reiheishi road, an exposed-post timber wall of 1935 joined to the front gate. Registered 2006.

The Sano Church of the United Church of Christ in Japan, located in Sano City, Tochigi Prefecture, is a wooden two-story Gothic-style church built in 1934. Registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2003, it features a striking blend of Western Gothic elements — including a rose window-style circular opening and pointed-arch doorways — with traditional Japanese woodworking techniques visible in the interior bracket capitals.

The Hōtō Upstream Sabo Dam in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, is a gravity-type masonry dam completed in 1952 and registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property. Standing 30 meters high with a crest length of 53 meters on the Fukasawa stream below Mount Nantai, this remarkable structure features refined stone masonry that blends harmoniously with the surrounding landscape when viewed from the famous Irohazaka road.

The Yamagata Aritomo Memorial Hall Annex is a refined two-story wooden Western-style house built around 1927 within the historic grounds of Yamagata Farm in Yaita City, Tochigi Prefecture. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2021, it features a hipped tile roof, a south-facing dormer window, and a pergola-shaded porch. Together with the adjacent main hall, it preserves the atmosphere of an early twentieth-century aristocratic country estate at the foot of Mount Takahara.