About

Kyōto National Museum (京都国立博物館, Kyōto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan)

The Kyōto National Museum is one of my favourite museums in Japan, and also the one I find most frustrating to visit. It routinely puts on some of the most splendid exhibitions of traditional Japanese art and historical artefacts anywhere in the country, so when there is a good one on, I am very much there. The problem is everything else. The museum’s Meiji Kotokan – a handsome European-style building of brick and copper dating from the 1890s – has been closed since 2015 for seismic retrofitting and related renovation, with no firm reopening date yet announced. Parts of the building are occasionally opened for special events, but otherwise the interior remains off-limits. Meanwhile, the sleek new Heisei Chishinkan does most of the actual work, hosting both the museum’s rotating collection displays and its headline special exhibitions, with the former inevitably giving way to the latter when the big shows arrive.

And so we have a museum whose collection is never really on permanent display in the conventional sense, whilst outside the special exhibitions there can be little to see beyond the gardens. Which is a terrible shame, because the exhibitions themselves are an absolute treat and have never once disappointed me. I suppose this is why my relationship with the Kyōto National Museum remains firmly in the love-hate category: I adore what it shows me, whilst being mildly exasperated by how rarely it lets me see anything else. Until the space problem is somehow resolved, I suspect that particular dynamic will continue.

Location

Links

Official Site (EN) / Official Site (JP) / Japan-Guide

Hours, fees, etc.

Refer to this page on the official website.

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