Kanazawa Folklore Museum

This guide to the Kanazawa Folklore Museum traces a Meiji-era school building that outlasted its sister buildings, taught students until 1970, then sat for decades as the region's last intact example of the era, with no one able to say who designed it. It follows the young prefectural engineer who signed the original drawing in 1899 before leaving Ishikawa for the Navy and a career touching Tokyo Imperial University. Look up at the roofline's three copper-topped spires that gave the building its local nickname, sansento, and the carved staircase inside.