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.
Concrete girder bridge of 1930 in Tokorozawa, Saitama, on the road to Japan's first airfield, with white-tiled arched railings and restored bronze lamps.
A two-story 1934 house at the back of the Asahiya Hara Pharmacy estate in Shiki, with tall rooms, many glass windows and sukiya-style eaves of paired rafters.
A single-story 1932 Western-style room beside the Asahiya Hara Pharmacy shop in Shiki, with a pantile hipped roof, west porch and walls edged in washed stone.
The 1931 rear gate and wall of the Otani estate in Fukaya, Saitama: a koraimon-style gate and 63 metres of battened wall enclosing the north and east sides.
A 1931 reinforced-concrete rice store at the Otani estate in Fukaya, Saitama, with mortar walls scored to look like stone and a timber king-post truss roof.
A 1931 sukiya-style house in Fukaya, Saitama, built as relief work for local craftsmen. Stained glass of pine and cranes lights its entrance alcove. Registered 2004.
A tiny 1931 bathhouse at the Otani estate in Fukaya, Saitama, walled on three sides and open to the garden on the fourth, in a light sukiya manner. Registered 2004.
The 1931 gate and wall facing the old Nakasendo at the Otani estate in Fukaya, Saitama, with a swelling gabled roof, openwork carving and adze-textured boards.
A 1931 miniature shrine in a courtyard of the Otani estate in Fukaya, Saitama. Only 0.37 square metres, yet built with a full bracket set and carved strut.
A 1931 Jugendstil villa joined to a sukiya house in Fukaya, Saitama, with Spanish tiles, washed-stone walls and stained-glass windows seen from the old Nakasendo.
A 1933 wooden ryotei in Ogawa, Saitama, registered in 2004. Its second floor holds a seventy-mat hall with a tokonoma facing a stage, behind a layered tiled roof.
A 1933 garden pavilion by a pond in Ogawa, Saitama, registered in 2004. Its eight-mat tea room juts over the water under a boat-bottom ceiling, railed on two sides.
Built in 1928 as a Bushu Bank branch to designs by Maeda Kenjiro, this Doric-columned concrete building stands among Kawagoe's black-plastered kura storehouses.
A 1927 Western-style timber building on a Kawagoe corner, built as a timber showroom and later the Rokkenmachi Post Office. Registered in 1997, still in use.
A 1958 zelkova tahoto pagoda on a rise at Menuma Shodenzan Kangiin, Saitama, built for the war dead and world peace, with revivalist details. Registered in 2017.
The Showa Storehouse of the former Kagamiyama sake brewery in Kawagoe, built in 1931 with drip ledges and cedar posts, now serves Saitama sake in a tasting room.
A 1930 stone wall about 30 m long on the north edge of a Chichibu silk wholesaler's lot: coursed tuff ashlar on a cobbled base with an arched side gate.
A 1930 meisen silk wholesaler's shop and house on a Chichibu corner: pent roof, bracketed eaves, fine lattice doors. Registered 2002; now Chichibu Furusatokan.
Smallest of three 1930 earthen storehouses at a Chichibu silk wholesaler's: 3.5 by 2 ken, plain eaves, weatherboarded base, cobbled footing and a trussed roof.
Largest of three 1930 earthen storehouses at a Chichibu silk wholesaler's, 5 by 2.5 ken, set at right angles to Storehouse B. Its storage shelves survive inside.