Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Tokyo

The Shimoda Residence Bunko-gura in Nishitokyo, Tokyo, is a small Meiji-era earthen storehouse kept by a family of hereditary village headmen and registered in 2019.

Janoyu Onsen Takaraso, a Registered Cultural Property in Hinohara, is Tokyo's only secluded hot-spring inn: a thatched late-Edo farmhouse with a kabuto-shaped roof.

In Tokyo's Shiba district by Zōjō-ji, Jōgyō-in's 1931 ossuary copies a wooden mausoleum's roof, cusped windows and carved porch in concrete. Registered in 2022.

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.

Discover Joshoin Hondo Naijin in Tokyo's Shiba Park—a 1769 Edo-period inner sanctuary, registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property, that miraculously survived the Great Kanto Earthquake and Tokyo air raids. Once the family temple of the famed Ichikawa Danjuro kabuki dynasty.

Above Senzoku Pond in Ota, Tokyo, the main house of Shofuso is an early-Showa sukiya home with low eaves, a wide veranda and choice timber. Registered in 2003.

The Shofuso Machiai in Ota, Tokyo is a cedar-log waiting arbor, a registered property where tea guests paused before an early-Showa gathering near Senzoku Pond.

An early-Shōwa gate near Tokyo's Senzoku Pond, barely 1.7 m wide, with a rivet-studded door, a carved frog-leg strut, and reused timber from ancient Hōryū-ji.

Tucked into a quiet residential lane in Ōta Ward, Tokyo, the Showa Lifestyle Museum occupies the former Koizumi Family Residence — a tiny two-story wooden home built in 1951 within the 18-tsubo limit of Japan's postwar public housing loan scheme. Designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2002, the house is preserved exactly as it was lived in, from the ice refrigerator in the kitchen to the sunken kotatsu in the family room. It is a rare and intimate window into the everyday life of an ordinary postwar Japanese family, set just eight minutes from Kuga-hara Station and easily combined with a visit to Ikegami Honmon-ji or a walk along the Tamagawa riverside.

Tucked inside Shirayuri University's wooded campus in suburban Tokyo, Megumi-so is a remarkable early-Meiji farmhouse with a triple life: originally the main hall of the Kikuchi family — hereditary village headmen in Izu Shuzenji — it was relocated to Tokyo in 1930 and moved again within the campus in 1967. Registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in 2014, the building preserves a massive central pillar, a classic six-room plan, and traces of a ceremonial stepped entrance. This guide explains its history, architectural highlights, and how to visit during its annual public opening.

Discover Shinkaiya, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Bunkyo, Tokyo. This wooden two-story soba restaurant, built in 1926, has served handmade noodles for over a century — surviving earthquakes, war, and time itself.

At the foot of Tokyo Tower stands the 1743 vermilion front gate of Shinkō-in, a branch of the Tokugawa temple Zōjō-ji, registered as a Cultural Property in 2001.

Below Tokyo Tower in Higashi-Azabu, Shinkoin's 1955 wooden main hall blends temple carpentry with modern touches, registered as a Tangible Cultural Property in 2017.

The Shinchosha Warehouse in Yaraicho, Shinjuku, Tokyo, is a five-story reinforced concrete book warehouse completed in 1959. Engineered to hold five million volumes, it served as the logistical heart of postwar publishing for Shinchosha, one of Japan's leading publishing houses. Its matching glazed tiles, shared eave line with the adjacent main building, and deep continuous streetscape along Ushigome-Chuo-dori make it a quiet masterpiece of Showa-era commercial modernism. Registered as a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property on August 6, 2025, it stands just steps from Kagurazaka Station, perfectly paired with a stroll through the Kagurazaka and Yaraicho districts.

Discover the Shinchosha Main Building in Kagurazaka, Tokyo — a 1957 reinforced concrete office registered as a Tangible Cultural Property. Explore its glazed tile façade, lobby relief celebrating world scripts, and the storied history of one of Japan's most prestigious publishers.

Shintomicho Tekkinro Store in Chuo City, Tokyo, is a wooden restaurant of about 1949. Its black fence and stone gate wall hold the line of a lost geisha quarter.

This reinforced concrete house in Bunkyo Ward was begun as a home and law office and caught by the 1923 earthquake mid-build. Nationally registered in 1998.

Built in 1947 as an architect's own house and studio, this single-storey timber home in Yokoderacho, Shinjuku, pairs lattice doors with brick. Registered 2011.

Built in 1916 as a pawnshop vault, this Yanaka storehouse rises three storeys of clay-plaster construction on a span of just 3.6 metres. Registered in 2000.