Shōwa

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.

A white 1936 school block beside a Tokyo geisha quarter: high windows to the street, wide ones to the yard. It survived the 1945 firebombing; registered in 2023.

Steel trusses carry the ceiling of this 1936 Tokyo school hall, leaving the floor clear of columns, while riveted steel columns hide in the walls. Registered 2023.

Discover Seikō Lodging, a rare 1930s Western-style boarding house in Tokyo's Ogikubo neighborhood. This Registered Tangible Cultural Property features a distinctive copper dome roof and continues to operate as Ryokan Seikō, offering overnight stays in a living piece of Japanese history.

Discover Solfège School, a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in Mejiro, Tokyo, designed by renowned modernist architect Junzo Yoshimura in 1967 for his violinist wife. Explore its architectural beauty, musical heritage, and unique solfège education method.

Discover Tiger Building in Kuramae, Tokyo — a Registered Tangible Cultural Property built in 1934. This reinforced concrete apartment building survived the Tokyo air raids and stands as the oldest building in Taito Ward.

The Taiyo Building (Maruishi Building) in Kanda Kaji-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, is a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property completed in 1931. Designed by Yamashita Toshiro—the architect behind Japan's first skyscraper, the Kasumigaseki Building—this rare Romanesque Revival office building features exquisite stone carvings, ornamental reliefs, and guardian lion statues.

Built in 1928 in a Setagaya garden, this Ōya stone basin runs 1.2 by 4.1 metres, its corner blocks pushing the edging outward into a cross in plan. Registered 2007.

This 1928 stone gate in Setagaya opens 1.8 metres wide, its posts stacked seven courses of Ōya stone under a capstone, with steps, paving and a stone flower bed.

Built in 1934 by Diet member Tsukumo Kunitoshi in Ome, western Tokyo, this timber guest wing has a tea room, salvaged brewery beams and a hall above the Tama River.

A 28-metre reinforced concrete wall of around 1934 in Ome, western Tokyo, scored with joints imitating timber boarding and roofed in pantiles above high stone banks.

A timber gate of around 1934 in Ome, western Tokyo, its posts and roof frame built from polished cedar logs with the knots left showing, under a gabled pantile roof.

Built in 1932 in Shoan, Suginami Ward, this Tokyo house sets a flat-roofed Western parlour against a tiled irimoya gable. Registered nationally in January 2010.

Tsubame-yu, a working wooden bathhouse built in 1950 in Ueno, Taito Ward, Tokyo, became in 2008 the first public bathhouse in the city to be registered as a National Tangible Cultural Property. Famous for its early-morning soak from 6 a.m., its scalding water, and a striking rock formation made from real Mount Fuji lava, it offers an authentic encounter with postwar sento culture in the heart of Okachimachi.

This 1953 timber house in Midori, Sumida City, groups a formal wing with a tea room and drawing room. Registered in 2008, it opens only for rare guided viewings.

Rising 62 meters above the Sekiguchi neighborhood of Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward, the Tokyo Cathedral Bell Tower is a masterwork of postwar modernist religious architecture by Tange Kenzo. With a footprint of just 12 square meters, four subtly twisted concrete faces, four German-cast bells suspended near the summit, and a cross-shaped pinnacle, the tower was designated a Registered Tangible Cultural Property in August 2025. This guide introduces its history, design, and how to visit.

Rising on a hilltop in Tokyo's Sekiguchi district, St. Mary's Cathedral was completed in 1964 to a design by Kenzo Tange and is celebrated as a masterwork of post-war modernism. Discover the eight stainless-steel shells that form a cross from above, the column-free sanctuary lit by a cross-shaped skylight, the bell tower, the Lourdes grotto, and how to plan your visit.

Built in 1931 as a chemistry lab needing its own ventilation, West Building 1 was the first permanent building on Tokyo Tech's Ookayama campus, in Romanesque dress.