Taishō

The Friends Center in Mita, Minato Ward, Tokyo, is a two-story wooden missionary residence designed by the Vories Architectural Office in 1922. As one of the very few pre-Great Kanto Earthquake Western-style buildings still standing in Tokyo, it was registered as a Tangible Cultural Property of Japan in 2005. The building preserves distinctive Taisho-era architectural features including a slate hip roof, brick chimney, and tall sash windows.

The 1914 main hall of Jōgū-ji, a Pure Land temple in Hiroo, Tokyo, joined Japan's Tangible Cultural Property register in 2017. Its gabled front is the draw.

Jogu-ji's reception annex in Hiroo, Tokyo, dates to around 1914. Registered in 2017, its plain rooms and comb-shaped transom show restrained Taisho temple design.

Built as the home of Yasui Tetsu, the university's first dean. At 111 sq m it is much the smallest of the seven registered buildings on this campus today.

Home to the university's foreign teaching staff, four units above and shared rooms below. Horizontal eaves and carved capitals show Raymond under Wright.

Completed in 1924 among the earliest buildings on this campus: an E-shaped plan, a hall projecting behind the entrance, and a Wrightian central section.

Built for the science classrooms and the largest of the seven at 1,453 sq m. Its south half came first, and triple steel sash windows face Building No. 7.

A Taisho-period wooden soba restaurant standing amid the office towers of Toranomon, Tokyo. Designated as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property, this beautiful building with ornamental chidori-hafu gables has served handmade soba since 1872. Enjoy one of Edo's three great soba traditions in a structure that survived the Great Kanto Earthquake, wartime air raids, and was carefully relocated to preserve its heritage.

Discover the Nakae Shop Building, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Taito, Tokyo. Built in 1924 by shrine carpenters after the Great Kanto Earthquake, this wooden structure houses Japan's last surviving sakura nabe (horse meat hotpot) restaurant from the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter era.

An Important Cultural Property film recording Onoe Matsunosuke—Japan's first movie star—performing the iconic "Farewell at Sakurai" before the future Emperor Shōwa at Japan's first motion picture exhibition in 1921. Only the second film ever designated nationally; a digitally restored version is freely available online, with related exhibits at the National Film Archive of Japan in Kyobashi, Tokyo.

Discover Metempsychosis (Seisei Ruten), Yokoyama Taikan's monumental 40-meter ink scroll painting depicting the eternal cycle of water. Designated as an Important Cultural Property, this masterwork is housed at MOMAT in Tokyo's Kitanomaru Park.

Built in 1914 at the Railway Agency's Shinbashi Works, the wooden Nade 6141 is the oldest surviving bogie electric railcar in Japan and the prototype of today's commuter trains, introducing the three-door layout and multiple-unit control system. Designated a National Important Cultural Property in 2017, it is preserved and displayed at The Railway Museum in Saitama City.

The Kakimoto Family Barrack in Naruto City, Tokushima Prefecture, is a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property and one of the only surviving wooden barracks from the Bandō Prisoner of War Camp, where German prisoners gave the first complete performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in Asia in 1918. Discover its history, the moving Japanese-German friendship it represents, and how to visit the nearby Naruto German House and German Village Park.

The Former Kashino Family Residence in Matsushige, Tokushima Prefecture, is a grand two-story wooden residence built between 1915 and 1925 by the Kashino family, who prospered through the lime trade. Featuring an irimoya-zukuri hip-and-gable roof and a building area of 381 square meters, this lavishly crafted mansion was registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property in 1999 and now serves as the Kashino Club wedding venue.

Sadamitsu Theater (Sadamitsu Gekijo) is a striking wooden playhouse built in 1932 in the heart of an old merchant town in western Tokushima. Originally a shibai-goya, it was converted to a cinema in 1949 and operated until 2011, ending an unbroken run as Tokushima's longest-running movie theater. Distinctive features include a copper-clad gabled roof, a grand arched façade, sajiki box seats around the perimeter, and original Showa-era advertisements still visible on the coffered ceiling. Registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property on August 6, 2025, the theater stands at the center of Sadamitsu's celebrated two-tiered udatsu townscape.

The inner sanctuary of Jizoji in Tokushima, rebuilt in 1922 after a fire, sets three halls in a U-shape where some two hundred life-size wooden rakan stand.

Discover Takeyashiki-dō, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Tsurugi Town, Tokushima. This Taishō-period pilgrimage hall serves as the 35th station of the Hata-Shikoku 88 Sacred Sites route, featuring traditional hōgyō-zukuri architecture amid the mountains of western Tokushima.

The Tahoto (multi-treasure pagoda) at Tatsue-ji, the 19th temple of the Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage in Komatsushima City, Tokushima Prefecture. Built in 1923 during the Taishō era, this elegant wooden two-story pagoda faithfully inherits the traditional tahoto form while incorporating exquisite carvings and a raised coffered ceiling characteristic of modern craftsmanship. It was registered as a national Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2024.

Completed in 1926, this brick-and-granite well-house of barely 21 square metres held the intake of Tokushima's first modern water supply, matching the plant's design.

Completed in 1926, this is the only round building of the Sako plant's three registered structures, a cylindrical brick-and-granite well-house about 5.1 metres high.