Taishō

Discover the Itani Family Residence Incense Waterwheel Shed in Susami, Wakayama Prefecture—a National Registered Tangible Cultural Property preserving the vanishing tradition of waterwheel-powered incense production in Japan's Kii Peninsula.

Standing in the Tankaku district of Shingu City, Wakayama, the Former Chapman House Main Building is a two-story wooden Western-style residence completed in 1926. It was designed by Shingu native Nishimura Isaku for the American Presbyterian missionary E.N. Chapman, embodying the architect's pioneering 'living-room-centered' home philosophy. Registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property in 2020, it is now freely open to visitors and pairs beautifully with nearby Kumano Hayatama Taisha and the Shingu Castle Ruins.

A reinforced-concrete gate on the estate's southern edge, west of the bath building, where two piers carry a segmental arch and keystone in pared-down Western style.

The estate's main entrance, a nagaya-mon of 1925, sets a room in its north bays against a tiled passage in the south, fronted by a long approach with a stone lion.

A two-story earthen storehouse in the northwest corner, pairing plastered walls with a Western king-post truss and lane-side boarding. Now used as a dining room.

A brick, two-story water tower north of the main house, with sash windows, a cornice and white tile banding, its modern utility shown openly among timber buildings.

Built in 1920 by speculator Matsui Isuke, this timber main house links three blocks around its garden, known for a Yakusugi-cedar ceiling. Now a restaurant.

A 91-meter earthen wall folding along the estate's south and west faces, tinted reddish with bengara over a sandstone skirt and a local blue-stone foundation.

The smallest registered building here, a privy southeast of the tea house, its yellow plaster walls set with differently shaped windows under cypress-bark eaves.

A compact earthen storehouse south of the north store, dated 1919, the earliest registered here, with plastered walls and a truss roof beside its larger neighbor.

A brick bath building at the southeast of the grounds, with a reinforced-concrete flat roof, parapet, cornice and geometric facade. Modern style in a private corner.

Discover the Kōdai-in Tahōtō, a finely crafted Taisho-era two-storied pagoda at one of Koyasan's most prestigious imperial temples. Learn about its royal heritage, exquisite architectural details, and the serene garden setting of this Registered Tangible Cultural Property.

The treasure house of Jōgan-ji in Kinokawa, Wakayama. Dating from 1913, it has a pyramidal tiled roof topped by a jewel finial and plastered walls. Registered 2024.

The Taiji Fisheries Cooperative Association Office is a Taisho-era wooden building near Taiji Port in Wakayama Prefecture, registered as a national Tangible Cultural Property. Featuring a traditional irimoya-style tiled roof and a distinctive pale pink exterior, this charming structure embodies the cooperative spirit of Japan's most famous whaling town.

A Taisho-era gate-house at the Nagatake farmstead in Wakayama: a 23-metre tiled range with black-plaster walls and a thin white line. Private; seen from the lane.

Designed by polymath Nishimura Isaku and built in 1925, this small wooden church in southern Wakayama has a steep roof, a tall porch, and an exposed timber truss.

Discover the Hashimoto Police Station Koya Executive Police Box, a unique Taisho-era wooden police building designed with Buddhist temple motifs, registered as a national tangible cultural property, located in the heart of the UNESCO World Heritage site Mount Koya, Wakayama.

The Hashimoto rice office in Gobo is a small Western-style timber building on the old Kumano Kaido, where a landowning house counted its tenant rice. Registered 2020.

The Hashimoto earthen wall in Gobo runs about twenty meters along the old Kumano Kaido, with a flared stone base and a washed-mortar face under pantile. Registered 2020.

Hatsuzakura's early-Taishō main house, in Katsuragi's last sake brewery, is a six-bay machiya whose upstairs rooms now host tastings of Kōyasan Hannyatō sake.