The Meiji Restoration had brought about a collapse of the old regulation and financing of kilns. Kōzan was at the forefront of the successor policy of industrial development, which included crafts, called "shokusan kōgyō". He exhibited at the Centennial Exposition of 1876, in Philadelphia, a wide range of ceramic wares, including high relief vessels presaging later work. In the aftermath, much attention was paid to Japanese ceramics for the next few years in Cincinnati, and the "Japonisme" reached the Rookwood Pottery Company. Kōzan also showed much development of lines quite independent of the Satsuma ware at First National Industrial Exposition of 1877 in Tokyo. This exposition was where the Emperor touched a Kōzan vase; a moment which made the artist famous. At the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889, he won a gold medal for his "yohen" (transmutation) glazes. The 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago won an Honorary Gold Medal for the workshop for a pair of elaborate stoneware vases.