Shōwa

Completed in 1927, the Former Owada Bank in Tsuruga, Fukui, combined banking floors with a public dining hall and assembly room. It now houses the city museum.

The smallest registered building at the Iwano Heizaburo Paper Mill in Echizen, this 1956 shed made the wooden crates that carried fine paper to painters nationwide.

Kogura, a 1949 two-story plaster dozo at the Iwano Heizaburo Paper Mill in Echizen, Fukui, once dried the oversized handmade sheets the mill is celebrated for.

The 1952 Fiber-Boiling House at the Iwano Heizaburo Paper Mill in Echizen, Fukui, is where kozo, mitsumata, gampi and hemp are boiled and cleaned to begin papermaking.

The 1953 Stretching and Drying Hall at the Iwano Heizaburo Paper Mill in Echizen, Fukui dried pressed sheets on boards under a wide truss-spanned room, the final step.

The 1953 Beater House at the Iwano Heizaburo Paper Mill in Echizen, Fukui cleaned and beat plant fiber into even pulp under a king-post truss lit by ribbon windows.

The Former Kyoto Dento Company Takahama Branch Office in Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, is a Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1931. This elegant two-story wooden building features a symmetrical façade with semicircular arched windows and ornate beige mortar decorations, reflecting the Western-influenced commercial architecture of early Showa-era Japan. Now serving as a community hub, it preserves the legacy of Japan's electrification history on the scenic Wakasa coast.

Built in 1933 at the heart of Tsuruga Port in Fukui Prefecture, these reinforced concrete warehouses showcase International Style architecture with distinctive Spanish tiles and decorative accents that earned them the nickname 'Modern Warehouses.' Registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property, they preserve the legacy of Tsuruga's golden era as Japan's gateway to Europe and Asia.

Discover the Former Nakanata Post Office in Obama, Fukui — a 1936 Western-style wooden building registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property, now revived as the charming community café Kinshiro.

A modern outlier among Meiji brick tunnels, the 1953 Yamanaka Rock Shed is one of Japan's earliest prestressed-concrete structures, a leap in engineering fifty years on.

Discover Suya Taihekitei, a soan-style teahouse registered as a national tangible cultural property in Echizen, Fukui. Originally cherished by Sengoku-era warlords, this thatched-roof retreat offers an intimate glimpse into Japan's living tea culture.

Tani Community Hall is a two-story wooden Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1953, located in the mountain village of Tani in Katsuyama City, Fukui Prefecture. Standing on a hilltop along the historic Ushikubi Kaidō road, it features a distinctive half-hipped roof, clapboard exterior, and elegant gable design with vertical windows and armored shutters.

The Torihama Sake Brewery Chimney in Wakasa Town, Fukui Prefecture, is a 13-meter-tall brick chimney built during the early Showa period. Constructed in English-bond brickwork and connected to the brewery's steam kettle through an underground flue, it was registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2011. Standing beside Lake Mikata, it serves as a beloved regional landmark symbolizing over a century of sake-brewing tradition.

A 47.6 m concrete tower built in 1943 in Shime, Fukuoka, to haul navy coal. Japan's only surviving tower-winding headframe and an Important Cultural Property.

Discover the Kyushu Tategu Woodworking Factory Warehouse in Okawa, Fukuoka — a nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1956 that embodies the postwar prosperity of Japan's leading furniture-producing town.

Discover the Tadokoro Shoten Warehouse, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Kitakyushu built with slag bricks from the Yawata Steel Works, reflecting the city's industrial heritage.

Discover Najima Bridge in Fukuoka City, a 1933 reinforced concrete seven-arch bridge spanning the Tatara River. Learn about its elegant classical design, its role in modern Japan's development, and how to visit this Registered Tangible Cultural Property.

Discover the Brick Wall of the Japan Evangelical Lutheran Kurume Church in Hiyoshi-machi, Kurume. Designed by William Merrell Vories and completed in 1927, this 21-meter Registered Tangible Cultural Property features seven elegant arches along the street, forming part of Kyushu's oldest surviving Vories architectural ensemble.

Built in 1958 on the plum-filled grounds of Bairinji Temple in Kurume, Fukuoka, this reinforced-concrete pavilion is an early masterwork by Kiyonori Kikutake, registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2021. With its central-axis columns and curtain walls opening onto the plum garden and Chikugo River, it remains an operating café where visitors can enjoy matcha framed by some 500 plum trees.

Hyakunen-Teien no Yado Suisui (Former Ryokan Tagawa Detached Quarters) Kiku is a modern sukiya-style detached guest quarter in central Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, registered in February 2022 as a National Tangible Cultural Property. Positioned to project over the pond of a Japanese garden first designed in 1889, the building evokes a small boat afloat on the water. Just a short walk from JR Kokura Station and close to Kokura Castle and Tanga Market, this is one of the rare places in Japan where international guests can spend the night inside a registered cultural property overlooking a registered scenic garden.