Shōwa

Discover the Ginza Onoya Store and Main Residence, a precious wooden commercial building from 1951 that preserves the postwar streetscape of Ginza. This Registered Tangible Cultural Property is home to a traditional tabi shop with a unique pentagonal floor plan.

Discover the Ginza Lion Building, home to Japan's oldest surviving beer hall since 1934. A Registered Tangible Cultural Property featuring stunning glass mosaic murals, Art Deco design, and the timeless spirit of Tokyo's Ginza district.

Discover the Kurosawa Building, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Ueno, Tokyo. Built in 1930 as the Ogawa Eye Hospital, this Expressionist-style reinforced concrete building houses the final stained glass masterpieces of Ogawa Sanchi, Japan's pioneering stained glass artist.

Gengi Sanbo in Ogikubo, Suginami, Tokyo, is the former residence of Kadokawa Genyoshi, founder of KADOKAWA and renowned haiku poet. Designed by architect Kakurai Akio, this modern sukiya-style building is a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property. Now open free as the Suginami Poetry Hall, visitors can explore the exhibition room, tea room, and a beautiful seasonal Japanese garden.

Kosugiyu is a working public bathhouse in the Kōenji district of Tokyo, in continuous operation since 1933 and listed in 2020 as a Nationally Registered Tangible Cultural Property. With its temple-style curved gable, 287-square-metre wooden frame, signature milk bath, well-fed cold pool, and painted Mount Fuji on the wall, this is one of only three sentō within Tokyo to receive such a designation — a rare chance to soak in genuine architectural heritage for the price of an ordinary bath ticket.

The Gotoh Museum Main Building, designed by master architect Yoshida Isoya and completed in 1960, stands as a remarkable reinterpretation of Heian-period palace architecture in reinforced concrete. Located in Kaminoge, Setagaya Ward, Tokyo, the building incorporates elements of shinden-zukuri court design — large round columns, shitomi-do shutters, wide verandas, and deep horizontal eaves — into a thoroughly modern structure. Registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property in 2017, it houses a collection of about 5,000 works including five National Treasures such as the celebrated Tale of Genji Picture Scrolls, set within an expansive garden along the Kokubunji Cliff Line.

Hiroo Elementary School in Shibuya is a 1932 reinforced-concrete schoolhouse from Tokyo's post-earthquake rebuilding, still in use with a rooftop fire-watch tower.

A 1932 Western house in Tokyo's Sendagi by architect Yabe Matakichi: German-influenced design, stained glass of warships, and links to a beriberi doctor.

The Shimura Residence's registered gate and 57-meter Oya-stone wall in Seijo, Tokyo, built around 1939 and topped with a hedge, recall how the suburb was planned.

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.

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.

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.

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.