Taishō
大正Browse Japan’s cultural heritage from the Taishō period (1912 – 1926). Filter by prefecture, type, and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
On the Tanba Kaido in Nagaokakyo, this Taisho wall of 6.5 m sets a latticed front gate in its central bay, with boarded lower walls, white plaster and tiled coping.
Between the main house and storehouse of the Kawai estate in Nagaokakyo, a Taisho garden gate 1.4 m wide is roofed in split moso bamboo, by an earthen wall of 3 m.
House and studio of 1925 of the painter Kawabata Yanosuke in Shogoin, Kyoto, built on his return from France, with a double-height studio lit from the north.
A 1913 entrance hall at Gion Kobu Kaburenjo, Kyoto: a karahafu porch, a hip-and-gable block that held first-class waiting rooms, and a coffered ceiling kept in 2022.
A 1913 timber annex beside the Gion Kobu Kaburenjo theater: a stepped west front of three gables, a 70-mat tea room, alcoved lounges and what visitors can see.
The 1913 hinoki theater of the Miyako Odori in Gion: twin hanamichi, musicians’ rows, a coffered ceiling kept through the 2016–2022 retrofit, and how to visit.
Built in 1915, this wall lines the old highway before the Kataoka Residence in Fukuchiyama. A Jizo hall set into its north end makes it a rare, designed streetscape wall.
Built in 1915 by the Kataoka merchant family, this formal shoin parlor once received Fukuchiyama's elite. It now houses a duck-hotpot restaurant open to diners.
A rare three-story earthen storehouse of 1915, raised on built-up ground to guard the Kataoka family's goods from the flood-prone Yura River, now part of a restaurant.
This 1915 storehouse, moved here in 1934, turns a decorated east face to the old highway to unify the Kataoka streetscape, now home to a duck-hotpot restaurant.
A 1923 reinforced concrete telephone exchange beside the Kamo River, designed by Yoshida Tetsuro with a German vernacular exterior. It now houses a supermarket.
Kyoto University's Rakuyukaikan, an alumni hall of 1925 in Spanish Mission style, has a rounded porch roof on Y-shaped columns and a fine Taisho-era interior.
Built around 1924 in Kyoto's textile district, this wooden townhouse sits behind a high front wall and pairs refined Japanese rooms with Western-style parlors.
The Founder's Hall of Kōshō-ji, a Shin Buddhist head temple in Kyoto. Rebuilt in 1911 after the 1902 fire, this large gilded hall became a Cultural Property in 2025.
Kōshō-ji's bell tower of 1774, said to be an imperial gift, is the precinct's oldest building and the sole survivor of the 1902 fire, registered in 2025.
North-east of Kōshō-ji's Founder's Hall stands this small Taishō-era water pavilion, finely built with a dragon-carved strut and coffered ceiling. Registered in 2025.
This late-Edo earthen wall flanks Kōshō-ji's Amida Hall gate on Horikawa-dōri. About 24m long, its plaster carries five rank stripes. Registered in 2025.
Komokuan in Minami Ward, Kyoto, was designed in 1913 by the painter Hasegawa Yoshio for his ailing brother. Glazed shoji and geometric kumiko fill it.
House of about 1924 on Mount Yoshida, Kyoto, one of 28 rental homes built for Kyoto University teachers, with a copper roof and a children's room upstairs.
Thatched farmhouse of 1916 at Kamigoma, Nantan, Kyoto, home of the Seiler family: hip-and-gable thatch with tiled lean-tos, plastered walls and a boarded base.