Taishō

Hidden behind the gates of a 350-year-old hot spring inn in Yamaguchi City's Yudaonsen district, Matsudaya Hotel Garden is a Nationally Registered Place of Scenic Beauty designed around 1918 by Ogawa Jihei VII (Ueji), the master gardener who shaped modern Kyoto's most celebrated landscapes. One of the very few Ueji gardens west of Kyoto, it features a four-meter three-tiered waterfall, gently meandering streams, ponds, and stone lanterns. The inn itself was a key meeting place for the architects of the Meiji Restoration, including Saigo Takamori, Kido Takayoshi, and Ito Hirobumi.

The Onoda Cement Yamate Club in Sanyo-Onoda, Yamaguchi, a guest house of 1914, is built of concrete blocks cast in European moulds as a showcase of its products.

Former Iwakuni Tax Office in Yamaguchi: a 1925 timber tax office in mortar render, symmetrical with gabled wings, said to be the prefecture's only prewar tax office.

Boundary walls of around 1926 on Suo-Oshima, 45 m long: dressed stone at the front, slag brick at the back, and square gateposts carved with a quince motif.

A granite-lined well topped by a 2.8 m brick tower, built around 1926 on Suo-Oshima to pipe water to a house's bath and kitchen; traces of gauge and pipes remain.

A 1926 timber house on Suo-Oshima built by a trader back from America: Japanese rooms around a courtyard, and a kitchen with an imported oven and piped well water.

A 1926 earthen storehouse on Suo-Oshima, joined to the main house with no inner stair, each floor entered from the house, its north face lined with windows.

The entrance to the inspection gallery of the No. 1 reservoir at Momoyama in Ube, Yamaguchi, built in 1924 for a colliery, frames its door in a pointed arch.

Creative Space Akarenga in Yamaguchi, a brick book stack of 1918 built for the prefectural library, is known as the red-brick house and became an art space in 1992.

The Sansuien inn at Yuda Onsen in Yamaguchi grew from an early Taisho villa set in its garden, with later sukiya wings that blend well with the original house.

The Sanmi Bridge of 1914 west of Hagi, Yamaguchi, a single stone arch of 16.4 metres on the old road to Shimonoseki, is known as the Spectacles Bridge.

Completed in 1926 as a naval fuel depot director's residence, this 36-square-metre Shunan wing keeps a coved coffered reception room behind a half-timbered gable.

This 238-square-metre wing of a 1926 naval residence in Shunan retains its ten-mat shoin rooms, carved transoms and a long veranda beam left as a round log.

Built in 1918 by Kyoto carpenters for a Hofu kimono merchant, this registered house shifts between tea-room informality and a formal 12.5-mat reception room.

Nagao Hachiman Shrine Offering-Preparation Hall on Suo-Oshima: a 1916 tiled hall south of the middle hall, paired with the waiting hall to frame the shrine grounds.

Nagao Hachiman Shrine Lattice Fence on Suo-Oshima: a 25-metre see-through fence of 1916 around the main hall, with diamond lattices and diagonal battens.

Nagao Hachiman Shrine Middle Hall and Offering Hall on Suo-Oshima: a 1916 copper-roofed building between the main hall and worship hall, with a raised offering hall.

Nagao Hachiman Shrine Water Pavilion on Suo-Oshima, Yamaguchi: a plain gabled pavilion of about 1915 with inward-leaning posts and turnip-shaped gable pendants.

Nagao Hachiman Shrine Torii on Suo-Oshima, Yamaguchi: a stone myojin torii of 1915, 6.9 metres high, with curved lintels and a carved plaque bearing the shrine name.

Nagao Hachiman Shrine Worship Hall on Suo-Oshima, Yamaguchi: a hip-and-gable hall of 1916 whose karahafu porch is crowded with openwork and fully carved figures.