Yokohama Christ Church, Anglican church in Yamatecho, Japan.
Yokohama Christ Church is a stone church in Yamatechō, Yokohama, built in a combination of Norman and Gothic architectural styles on a steel-reinforced concrete frame. The exterior is clad in Ōya Stone, a volcanic tuff quarried in Tochigi Prefecture, which gives the building its warm, grey-green tone.
The congregation was founded in 1863, shortly after Yokohama opened as a foreign trade port, making it one of the oldest Protestant communities in Japan. Earlier church buildings on the site were destroyed over time, and the current structure was completed in 1931 to a design by architect Jay Hill Morgan.
The church stands in Yamate, a neighborhood that has long been home to Yokohama's foreign community. Services are held in English, making this one of the few places in the city where that tradition has continued without interruption.
Sunday services are open to all visitors regardless of denomination, and this is the most reliable way to see the interior. The church is in the Yamate area, which is easy to walk around, and several other historic buildings from the same period are nearby.
Ōya Stone is common in Japan but almost never used in Western-style church buildings outside the country. The stone is soft enough that tool marks from cutting are sometimes visible on the surface, giving the walls a texture quite different from the smooth dressed stone of European churches.
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