Walk into a 1932 pre-Hellenic temple and find a choir rehearsing
A Cretan temple used as a community hall
The Okurayama Memorial Hall in Kohoku Ward was built in 1932 as the headquarters of the Okura Institute for Spiritual Culture, designed by Nagano Uheiji in a pre-Hellenic, Cretan-Mycenaean style: a Greek-temple exterior over traditional Japanese timber interiors, a 25.5 m tower and an entrance hall with a 21 m ceiling, stained glass and a carved eagle and lion.
Why it's unique
There is no other building in the country in this idiom. Nagano was a pupil of Tatsuno Kingo and the first president of the Japan Architects Association, and chose a pre-Hellenic style that nobody else built in.
It is not a museum. The city bought it in 1981 and runs it as a municipal community facility, so the experience is walking into a Greek temple and finding a choir at practice, which is better than any guided tour.
Before you go
It is open 09:00 to 22:00, which makes it one of very few significant buildings in the city you can see at night. The rooftop corridor is normally off-limits and opens only for occasional architecture events, so watch the calendar.
Time a visit for the Kanbaikai plum festival in the adjoining park in late February: 222 plum trees of 46 varieties, free, with local stalls, plum liqueur, amazake and an outdoor tea ceremony run by a high school tea club. It is a seven-minute uphill walk from Okurayama Station.