Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Shiga

The Minakuchi Church Chapel in Koka City, Shiga Prefecture, is a wooden chapel designed by William Merrell Vories in 1930. Registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property, this American Colonial-style building with a distinctive Latin cross floor plan stands as a masterpiece of early Showa-era architecture nestled in a historic castle town.

Hakuunkan in Omi-Hachiman, Shiga Prefecture, is a masterpiece of pseudo-Western architecture built in 1877 as the Hachiman-Higashi Elementary School, funded almost entirely by donations from prosperous Omi merchants. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property, this distinctive building blends Western facades with Japanese karahafu gables and a drum tower. Today it serves as a tourist information center and gateway to exploring the historic lakeside city.

Built in 1896 in Sone-cho, Nagahama, Shiga, this 1.8-metre shrine gate has a cypress-bark roof, a karahafu gable and relief carving, with a 36-metre tiled fence.

A 1929 registered property in Higashiomi, Shiga: a plain merchant-town front hiding a refined sukiya hall upstairs, with a curved coffered ceiling and bat-shaped windows.

The oldest of the estate's three registered buildings in Higashiomi, Shiga: a kura of about 1919, facing the road with board skirting below and corrugated iron above.

A 1929 registered property on the Fukada estate in Higashiomi, Shiga: a small wing for the bath and lavatory, yet with a corridor ceiling refined enough for a hanare.

A late 18th-century soy sauce brewer's townhouse on Omizo's merchant street in Takashima, Shiga. It keeps its tiled udatsu fire walls and houses a cafe and bakery.

A small early 19th-century storehouse behind the Fukui main house in Takashima, Shiga, holding household goods rather than soy sauce. Plaster above, boarding below.

An early 19th-century koji fermentation room in Takashima, Shiga, where soy sauce brewing began. Its long front roof slope gives it the look of a Shinto shrine hall.

Fujii Honke's main house began as a merchant home in Hino, rebuilt at this Aisho brewery around 1960. Its stepped roofline sets formal rooms apart from the work hall.

The Fujii Honke shoin is a single-story guest wing of three linked blocks. Rebuilt here at a right angle to the main house, it reflects a Taisho merchant family's taste.

The Fujii Honke chimney rises about eleven meters between two storehouses, its square brick shaft laid in English bond, red brick set against the white plastered walls.

This small building held Fujii Honke's testing and inspection rooms, where the finished sake was judged. Its plastered west front carries an insect-cage lattice window.

The Fujii Honke brewing storehouse stands by a stone-lined channel. Inside this earthen-walled hall, steamed rice, koji, starter and Suzuka water form the staged mash.

The Fujii Honke sake storehouse is the largest of the group at some 728 square meters. Its L-shaped plan holds the kettle room and links the small inspection rooms.

A registered cultural property in Nagahama, Shiga. Built around 1884 purely for guests, its 24-mat hall opens onto a veranda facing a garden of Mount Fuji lava.

A registered cultural property in Nagahama, Shiga. This 23-square-metre plastered storehouse opens off the main house passage, its door sealed by stepped plaster.

A registered cultural property in Nagahama, Shiga. Built around 1884 as a merchant family villa, its walls are plastered to the eaves and its windows iron-grilled.

A 1933 timber row house at the end of a bent lane in Otsu, Shiga. Built for two households, now one, it keeps both doorways. Registered 2020; a private home, closed.

An early Showa timber annex behind the registered ryotei in Kusatsu, Shiga. Its ground-floor hall carries a coved coffered ceiling, and verandas wrap both floors.