Culture

In a city where even the streets can feel like living works of art, one of Japan’s oldest public art museums remains a landmark destination. Renovated and reopened in 2020, Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art occupies an *teikan* (Imperial Crown Style) brick building that dates back to 1933. Restored to its former glory and with additions by architects Jun Aoki and Tezzo Nishizawa, it provides a memorable setting for exhibitions ranging from contemporary art to the museum’s collection of more than 4,000 works of Kyoto modern art. The museum garden and bookshop are also worth a visit.

124 Okazaki Enshoji-cho, Sakyo-ku, 606-8344
075-771-4334
kyotocity-kyocera.museum

Kyoto residents enjoyed design and fashion in the Edo era as much as they do today. Back then, in a world without wallet chains, people used a hook at the end of a strap to carry small items such as inro (pillboxes) or purses tied to the obi belt of their kimono. Sculpted from ivory and bull horns, these small objects, called netsuke, also doubled as a functional hook and a fashionable accessory. Here you can see some 400 netsuke in Kyoto’s only existing buke-yashiki (samurai house), built in 1820. 

Known as Momak, this waterside museum started life in the 1960s as an offshoot of Tokyo’s Museum of Modern Art. Now housed in a mid-1980s building by Fumihiko Maki, it has broad interests but concentrates on 20th-century Japan and particularly the work of artists from Kyoto and the Kansai region. Exhibitions can vary, from a show about Van Gogh and Japan to a retrospective of Nara-born artist Koji Kinutani. The museum screens films too.