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.
An early Showa concrete tower in Ise, 2.5 metres wide and about 6 metres high, with two segmental arches at its base and a tank above. Registered in 2001.
Concrete waterworks pump house of 1936 in Iga, Mie, built for Ueno's first piped water, with a balcony porch and arched windows; the first registered in Mie.
A 1929 rest house in Iga's Kagiya-no-tsuji park recreating the teahouse of the 1634 vendetta. Sukiya detailing, split-bamboo ceiling, registered 2024, repaired 2026.
The main house of Katsuo no Tenpaku, a dried-bonito maker on Cape Daio in Shima, Mie, is a single-storey home of 1951 with board walls set low against the sea wind.
The 1951 workshop of Katsuo no Tenpaku in Shima, Mie, pairs a smoking hut with a sunken firebed and a mould room, where dried bonito is still made by hand today.
A two-storey reinforced concrete post office of 1932 on the Wakayama Kaido in Matsusaka, Mie. Built as the Kakino Post Office, it was registered in 2011.
A single-storey timber post office of 1931 in Tsu, Mie. Its L-shaped plan sets the working space east and the night duty rooms west. Registered in 2019.
A detached tatami parlour of around 1955 at the Former Ito Denshichi Villa in Yokkaichi, Mie. Ten and six mat rooms, alcove joinery; registered in 2010.
Built in 1934 above Ago Bay for a retired insurance manager, this Shima City house sets formal Japanese reception rooms beside a lacquered coffered-ceiling study.
A 1932 detached guest wing of a Nabari restaurant inn: four tatami rooms and a Western room, each with its own front door, under split-bamboo and colored clay walls.
A 1936 banquet block of a Nabari restaurant inn: a Western dance hall with Chinese details below, a 44-tatami hall with a coved coffered ceiling above it.
A 1936 tea room of 12 square meters at a Nabari restaurant inn: four mats, no hearth, a wide alcove with a curved bark-on post and a split wicker and bamboo ceiling.
The 1936 family house of a Nabari restaurant inn: copper-edged eaves, a kozama-shaped lattice window, curved cut-outs in the corridor walls, and a Western room.
The Annex of the Former Ryokan Kokonoe in Iga, Mie, is a c.1949 detached wing of two tatami rooms finished with blue tiles and random stone, registered in 2018.
The Gate and Wall of the Former Ryokan Kokonoe in Iga, Mie, built c.1943, pair a low gabled gate and split-bamboo wings with 14 meters of wall; registered 2018.
Just 7.2 square metres, this early Showa tool store in Matsusaka, Mie, was registered in 2013 for the way it closes a former medicine dealer's walled compound.
Built around 1935 at Juryoji temple in Kuwana, Mie, this 16-square-metre concrete hall sets a vaulted roof above a Japanese cusped gable carried on fluted columns.
A one-bay concrete bell tower of about 1935 at Juryoji temple in Kuwana, Mie. Arches span its posts below a pyramidal roof, and washed aggregate patterns its faces.
The North Building of Shirakawa Elementary School in Kameyama, Mie, is a 1954 timber wing joined to its twin by three corridors across a courtyard. Registered 2009.
Registered in 2009, the 1954 South Building of Shirakawa Elementary School in Kameyama, Mie, is a 58-metre timber wing whose dormer gable fronts a working school.