名古屋城天守閣

Nagoya Castle and Its Main Tower

The Main Tower of Nagoya Castle is the symbol of the castle, whose construction began in 1609 under the orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu and was completed in 1612. Built as a strategic stronghold against the Toyotomi forces and as a base for controlling western Japan, the castle flourished as the residence of the Owari Tokugawa family, the senior branch of the Tokugawa Gosanke.

The Main Tower was a five-story, five-level structure with a basement level, forming a connected tower complex in the distinctive layered-tower style. The Main Tower and Small Tower were linked by stone walls and covered passages, creating an imposing architectural composition.
Golden shachihoko were placed on the roof as the castle's most recognizable symbol, while the decorative gables, stonework, gates, roof tiles, and other details showcase the remarkable craftsmanship of early-modern Japanese castle architecture.

During the Meiji period, many of Nagoya Castle's historic buildings, including the Honmaru Palace, were preserved. However, during the Nagoya air raids of 1945, the castle's principal structures, many of which had been designated as former National Treasures, were destroyed by fire.

The Main Tower was subsequently reconstructed in reinforced concrete in 1959.
The Honmaru Palace has since been reconstructed based on the architecture of the Keicho period, with full public access beginning in 2018.



According to the latest available data for fiscal year 2025 (April 2025–March 2026), Nagoya Castle welcomed 2,387,217 visitors during the year.
Today, it remains both a major tourist destination and an active site of restoration, with plans for a full wooden reconstruction of the Main Tower, a model experience facility recreating the tower's staircases, and ongoing improvements to the Ninomaru area.

For this work, I recreated the present-day exterior of Nagoya Castle's Main Tower as it stands after the Second World War, using historical sources and on-site research to translate the architecture into a detailed Japanese-style Minecraft build.

For the interior, I reconstructed the lost historic structure based on the idea of "what if the buildings that once stood here had survived to the present day?" I researched the arrangement of each floor, beam structures, roof framing, and other architectural details as thoroughly as possible, aiming to create a realistic spatial representation with the atmosphere of a detailed architectural diorama.