Yodoko Guest House

A modern architecture built in 1924 as Tazaemon Yamamura's villa, the 8th head of Sakura Masamune, a sake brewer in Nada Gogo (The Five Villages of Nada). Yodogawa Steel Works has owned it since 1947, and it is now open to the public as "Yodoko Guest House."

The building was designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the greatest modern architects of the 20th century, whose major works have been designated as World Heritage sites. Wright is best known in Japan for designing the Imperial Hotel, but the Yodoko Guest House is the only Wright residential building in Japan that has retained its original appearance. It was designated a National Important Cultural Property in 1974 as the first reinforced concrete residential building built after the Meiji period.

Built on a hill overlooking the city of Ashiya, the building's geometric carved stones, intricate woodwork and ornamental copper panels are all elements of Wright's architectural philosophy of harmonizing with nature. It is a symbol of the "Hanshinkan Modernism" culture that thrived in the Hanshin area in the first half of the 20th century.