Kyu Iwasaki-tei House & Gardens

Built in 1896 for Iwasaki Hisaya, son of the founder of the Mitsubishi conglomerate, this compound reveals the fin-de-siecle sheen beneath Ueno’s grimy surface. Josiah Conder designed the recently renovated main residence – a two-storey wooden structure with Jacobean and Pennsylvanian country-house elements (and the first Western-style toilet in Japan) – and the adjacent billiards room in the form of a log cabin. In the large tatami rooms, visitors can sip green tea and admire fusuma (sliding doors) painted with seasonal motifs by Hashimoto Gaho.