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.
In Miyahara, Kumamoto, a 20-meter red brick wall in English bond edges the old Iseri merchant estate. Its even buttresses and capping cornice show late-Taisho craft.
A small 1925 concrete bank in Miyahara, an old Kumamoto post town. Its Secession-style front carries four pilasters and a geometric parapet, and entry is free.
Built in 1925 to carry carts over the Koshi River, Himeibashi in Kikuchi, Kumamoto, is Japan's earliest surviving through-type reinforced concrete arch bridge.
Taisho-era wall of Aso welded tuff in Kikuchi, Kumamoto. Coursed nunozumi masonry, trapezoidal in section, 46 metres long, once nearly twice its present height.
A Taisho farmhouse in Kikuchi, Kumamoto, registered in 2013: timber from the family's own hillside, heavy beams over the doma, transoms carved with Aso's peaks.
Former Yasuda Bank branch of 1925 in Yamaga, Kumamoto, with an Ionic-style historicist front, now a museum of Yamaga lanterns made only of washi paper and glue.
Registered in 2013, this early Taisho two-storey block at Yoshino Ryokan in Hitoyoshi, Kumamoto, began as a bathhouse and keeps lath windows and coloured glass.
Built in 1913 as a Bank of Japan deputy governor's villa and moved twice to Mt. Akagi, this refined house pairs tatami rooms with a Western parlour. Registered in 2025.
Raised in 1913 to keep a soy sauce brewer's account books safe from fire, this small plastered storehouse in Midori City, Gunma, was registered in 2013.
A c.1924 two-story house in Shimonita, Gunma, turning a gently curved hip-and-gable roof to the old highway, with a guest room upstairs. Registered in 2009.
A c.1924 brick firewall 7.3 meters high against the main house of the Ogino Family Residence in Shimonita, Gunma, with a raised udatsu-like end. Registered 2009.
A Taisho-era well house by the path to a headman's farmhouse in Ota, Gunma: a small tiled roof over a Yabuzuka stone well shaft topped with a granite curb.
A Taisho-era privy beside a headman's farmhouse in Ota, Gunma: a narrow tiled building on Yabuzuka stone footings with four tiny cubicles, the middle two toilets.
Concrete office building of about 1921 in Kiryu, Gunma, built by a weaving firm, with a stone-effect base, white tiles and Secession ornament over the door.
A late Taisho brick sake store in Maebashi, Gunma, registered in 2016, the last brewery building in the city centre and now the Maebashi Renga-gura arts venue.
A 28-square-meter dye house of 1919 pressed against the back of the mill office. Four roof skylights, glazed wall openings, a king post truss. Registered in 2015.
Kiryu's only brick-walled sawtooth weaving shed, its ridge raised in December 1919 and registered in 1998. English-bond brick from Fukaya, four bays left of six.
A brick gate of 1916 on the Kiryu campus of Gunma University, listed in 1998 for its design. Gothic canopies crown all four faces of each pier, with lamps above.
A 1922 weaving shed at the back of the Soga family plot in Kiryu: timber frame, coursed Oya stone walls and five sawtooth bays. Registered in 2006; exterior only.
Built in Tokyo in 1924 for Viscount Toki Akira and twice rebuilt in Numata, this German-influenced villa keeps its ox-eye dormer and two reception rooms.