The largest castle in Japan, Ōsaka-jō was first built in 1583 - only to be destroyed in 1615 following a siege by Tokugawa Ieyasu's armies. Rebuilt and destroyed twice more in the 17th and 19th centuries, it was finally reconstructed in its current concrete state in 1931. The rather unsightly elevator on the exterior was added in the 1990s, during a restoration project originally meant to bring back the structure's "Edo-period splendor."