The Best Museums in Japan

Art with a setting

The Chichu Art Museum on Naoshima was built into a hill by Tadao Ando and shows works by only a few artists, among them five Water Lilies paintings by Monet in a room lit by daylight. Tickets are timed and photography is not allowed. At the Adachi Museum of Art in Yasugi the garden is looked at from inside the building and is not entered.

Dinosaurs, peoples, looms

The Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum in Katsuyama shows dozens of mounted skeletons under a silver dome by Kisho Kurokawa. The National Museum of Ethnology, in Expo Commemoration Park near Osaka, has objects from every region of the world. The Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology in Nagoya runs its looms and assembly robots in demonstrations.