Shōwa
Tokyo · 昭和Browse Tokyo’s cultural heritage from the Shōwa period (1926 – 1989). Filter by type and keyword, with concise stories, maps, and travel tips.
Shinkaiya in Sengoku, Bunkyo, Tokyo, an early Showa soba shop, keeps its earth-floored dining room and upstairs rooms behind a tall front of lattice and railings.
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 1959 book warehouse of Shinchosha near Kagurazaka, Tokyo, registered in 2025, built to hold five million volumes and matched in height to the main building.
The 1957 head office of Shinchosha near Kagurazaka, Tokyo, registered in 2025, with a dignified glazed-tile exterior and a lobby relief of the world's scripts.
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.
A 1938 L-shaped timber lodging house of 13 rooms in Ogikubo, Tokyo, registered in 2009, whose curved northwest corner is capped by a small copper-roofed dome.
The Solfeggio School in Mejiro, Tokyo, a concrete music school of 1967 designed by Yoshimura Junzo for his violinist wife, is an early work in his series for music.
The Tiger Building in Kuramae, Tokyo, built in the early Showa period as luxury elevator apartments, is an example of the rebuilding after the earthquake.
The Taiyo (Maruishi) Building in Kanda, Tokyo, an office block of 1931 by Yamashita Toshiro, is clad in scratch tiles and carved with animal and plant reliefs.
A 1927 Nishitokyo farmhouse with two front doors, a central corridor and refined tatami rooms under a Western roof truss; registered as a cultural property in 2018.
Tamura Sake Brewery's early Showa water mill in Fussa, Tokyo: a timber mill and an earthen store under one metal roof, beside a channel from the Tamagawa Aqueduct.
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.