Shōwa

This 1929 pump room at the Kotakano plant looks like solid masonry, with crisp geometric ornament around its windows. It still runs, dosing chemicals since 1981.

At the head of Toyohashi's first water system, this 1929 pump room shows rows of arched windows and stone-like, tile-edged walls, quietly Romanesque in feel.

On high ground east of Kotakano, this 1929 earth-covered reservoir fed the city by gravity, its tile-clad gatehouses with pointed-arch doorways adding grace.

Completed in 1954 and registered in 2016, this 34-metre timber wing in Toyohashi lines its east face with bay windows, a postwar answer to the one-sided classroom.

Built in 1944 and registered in 2016, this 62-metre timber schoolhouse in Toyohashi now holds five rooms of folk tools, from silk reeling to wartime household life.

Around 1928 a king post truss gave Nakasada Shoten Shosan Storehouse an 11-metre clear span for rows of brewing vats. Registered in 2016, in Taketoyo, Aichi.

Dating from around 1927, Nakasada Shoten Shoni Storehouse sets black sasarako boarding against white plaster window frames over a king post truss. Registered 2016.

An early Showa outbuilding in Arimatsu, Nagoya, running east of the main house. Its cobble footing, boarded wall and black plaster match the fence. Registered 2008.

An early Showa bracket-arm gate on the north edge of a dyer's property in Arimatsu, Nagoya, facing the Tekoshi River. Only 1.7 meters wide. Registered in 2008.

The 1961 cathedral of the Diocese of Nagoya in Higashi Ward, a Gothic church in exposed concrete with twin openwork spires and a soaring interior. Registered.

A 1927 railway bascule bridge at Nagoya Port by movable-bridge pioneer Yamamoto Utaro, preserved with its leaf raised at 78 degrees since the line closed.

Built in 1930 in Tsuruma Park, Nagoya City Public Hall combines round-arched windows and crane-wing reliefs in early steel-framed concrete. Registered in 2020.

The thatched front gate at the southeast corner of Tozanso in Nagoya. Knotted log posts, fan-splayed rafters, and a 32-meter wall of flattened bamboo.

A bracket gate inside Tozanso in Nagoya, parting the front garden from the inner one. A 1.2-meter opening under cedar bark, and a 19-meter two-faced wall.

Completed in 1960 at Nagoya University's Higashiyama campus, this exposed-concrete hall by Maki Fumihiko was listed in 2011, and its clock tower glows blue at night.

A 1932 office building in Nagoya's Higashi Ward, clad in scratch tile with geometric motifs, a symbol of the city's export ceramics trade; open free on weekdays.

Reiners Hall, the 1932 main building of Nanzan Gakuen in Nagoya, was designed by the Swiss architect Max Hinder, with ochre walls and notched parapets.

The 1934 office building of the Japan Ceramic Center in Nagoya is a concrete building faced with ceramic tiles inside and out, with an Art Deco meeting room.

The 1958 building of the Japan Ceramic Center in Nagoya is a modernist office with wide glazing, balanced windows, a curving staircase and regional tiles.

The Lutheran church in Okazaki, Aichi, built in 1953, is a timber church with a spire and cross on its ridge, three aisles and white walls under a red roof.