Visiting Art and Cultural History Museums

Meiji Mura is an open-air museum that preserves buildings of historical interest from the Meiji Era that have been relocated and reconstructed there. The “village” is designed to let visitors experience the daily life of people in the Meiji Era through its displays of representative facilities such as a post office, transportation services, and so on. The museum has many valuable structures, including the house that the writers Mori Ogai and Natsume Soseki lived in, the summer house of Lafacadio Hearn, and the entrance to the old Imperial Hotel designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Almost all of the buildings can be entered for viewing.

This museum displays a wide range of ethnological materials from countries around the world. In addition to the displays, which are divided into themes such as evolution, technology, language, society, and values, in the main museum building, many houses from a variety of countries have been brought to the museum and reconstructed, and they are on display outside, giving visitors a real sense of the life and culture of peoples across the world. Visitors can also try on the native dress of many ethnic groups and sample their cuisine at the various stands outside.

At the Kiln Plaza, an original kiln, chimney, and building no longer in use because of changing technology are displayed in as near to as possible their original form, as well as are many terra cotta tiles and old porcelain toilets. In 1997 the kiln and the building it is housed in were designated as registered tangible cultural assets.

The museum is located in a quiet corner of the tranquil and lush Shirakawa Park in Fushimi. The museum’s splendid collections include works by Modigliani, Chagall, Laurencin, and Picasso, as well as by Japanese artists such as Tsuguharu Fujita, the Aichi-born Takanori Oguiss, Tamiji Kitagawa, and Setsuko Migishi

The museum houses and displays an enormous number of pottery and ceramic pieces. In addition to its permanent collections, it also puts on special exhibitions centering on various themes. Visitors can also experience making ceramics at the museum’s ceramics craft studio.

Exhibiting outstanding collections from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the museum allows those in Japan to see a wide range of the superb art works held by this distinguished Boston museum. Every year two regular exhibitions are held, and long-term exhibitions run for five years.