Shōwa

The Roy Smith House Main Building in Kobe's Nada Ward is a refined two-story wooden Spanish-style mansion designed by Shimizu Eiji and completed in 1935 as the residence of trader Otani Shigeru. In 1960 it was purchased by the former students of Professor Roy Smith, an American educator who taught at Kobe University for more than half a century, and gifted to him in gratitude. Today it is a nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property, prized as a rare example of the Hanshin-kan modern movement nestled in a quiet hillside neighborhood at the foot of Mount Rokko.

A registered Tangible Cultural Property in Nada, Kobe. Built around 1935 as part of a grand estate designed by Eiji Shimizu for a Kobe trading merchant and later dedicated to American professor Roy Smith, the granite-faced gate pillars and a 111-meter Mikage stone wall embody early-Showa elite residential culture.

A remarkably intact 1934 summer villa on Mount Rokko above Kobe, designed by the renowned Vories Architects firm. This single-story wooden retreat preserves original features including a twenty-mat living room, adze-finished beams, and a stone fireplace. A Registered Tangible Cultural Property, it opens to the public on weekends from April to November.

No crawl entrance, only a high kijinguchi: this small Nishinomiya tea house follows the Fumai school of Matsue, a lineage rarely built in the Kansai region.

Tea-house scholar Okada Takao designed this 331-square-metre Nishinomiya house, which pivots from Spanish tile to tatami. Registered property, open by booking.

Japanese storehouses are normally earthen-walled; this one in Nishinomiya is reinforced concrete, with a tatami antechamber and a darkroom set at the front.

A steel-frame water tower in the Hirao Family Residence, Toyooka. Its early-Showa frame carries a riveted tank that once piped water through the estate. Not public.

An earthen garden wall in the Hirao Family Residence, about 19 m long. A rough rubble footing carries it, exposed inside and black-plastered outside. Not open to the public.

A short 3.6 m wall linking the main house to the livestock shed, Hirao Family Residence. It cleanly separates domestic space from the working yards. Not open to the public.

A 28 m board fence enclosing the inner garden's east side, Hirao Family Residence, set on a low fieldstone retaining wall. Plain boarding gives a quiet enclosure. Not public.

A 25 m board fence and bracket gate closing the inner garden's north side in the Hirao Family Residence. Set straight on the ground, it completes the enclosure. Not public.

A single-arch reinforced-concrete overpass carrying a footpath over the Hokutan colliery's coal railway at Yubari, its deck tilted to clear larger rolling stock.

A reinforced-concrete viaduct of seven semicircular arches, each spanning six metres, built in 1951 to carry the Takamatsu waste-rock line at the Yubari colliery.

A straight concrete tunnel seventy-three metres long, built in 1951 for the skip cars that hauled waste rock along the Takamatsu line, with portals at each end.

The west portal of the belt-conveyor tunnel on the Takamatsu waste-rock line: a concrete face nearly nine metres wide framing a modest semicircular opening.

Built in 1950, the Hakodate Park Kodomo no Kuni Aerial Ferris Wheel is Japan's oldest operating Ferris wheel, designated as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2019. Standing 10 meters tall with an octagonal wheel and open-air bench-style gondolas, it offers views of the Tsugaru Strait and Mount Hakodate. Experience the nostalgic charm of the Showa era at this beloved retro amusement park within historic Hakodate Park.

The Hakodate YWCA Hall in Shōin-chō, Hakodate, Hokkaido, is a wooden residence built around 1926 in the upscale 'Bunka-mura' (Culture Village) district. Registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property in 2016, it features a distinctive asymmetrical façade with half-timbered green gable decorations and pale pink clapboard walls, crowned by a porch that blends Japanese karahafu curves with Western Doric columns. Still actively used as the Hakodate YWCA headquarters, it offers a café, community programs, and a window into early Showa-era suburban life.

Discover the Hinoki Shinyaku Rusutsu Mountain Lodge, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Hokkaido designed by legendary architect Seiichi Shirai in 1972, featuring distinctive brickwork and sculptural interiors at the foot of Mount Shiribetsu.

Discover Prairie House (Former Sada Residence), a 1928 Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Hakodate's Motomachi district. Designed by Tanoue Yoshiya, a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright, this Wrightian residence features striking geometric windows and deep horizontal eaves.

By Mankei Pond below Mount Soranuma, this 1928 log lodge was designed by Swiss architect Max Hinder at Prince Chichibu's wish. It sleeps up to thirty in Alpine style.