Koka miho museum · Miho Museum in Koka
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Miho Museum in Koka
Miho Museum in Koka
Miho Museum (ミホ・ミュージアム) - The Miho Museum, located in the heart of Shigaraki, is one of Kōka City's true gems. Exhibits in the expansive museum change every several months and generally include art and artifacts from the Silk Road area. The design of the museum is just as noteworthy as the exhibits. It was conceived by world famous architect I.M. Pei, who is known for also designing the John Hancock Tower in Boston, the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
The Miho was the dream of Mihoko Koyama (after whom it is named), the heiress to the Toyobo textile business, and one of the richest women in Japan. In 1970 she founded the Shinji Shumeikai spiritual movement which is now said to have some 300,000 members worldwide, and in the 1990's she commissioned the museum to be designed by I M Pei and built close to the Shumei temple in the Shiga mountains. It houses Mihoko Koyama's private collection of Asian and Western antiques as well as US$300 million to US$1 billion (depending on your sources) worth of other pieces bought on the world market by Shumei in the years before the museum was opened in 1997.
Over a thousand pieces in total, of which about 250 are displayed at any one time. I M Pei's design is a masterpiece, executed in a hilly and forested landscape that he came to call Shangri-La. About three quarters of the building is situated underground, carved out of a rocky mountaintop. The roof is an enormous glass and steel construction, while the exterior and interior walls and floor are made of a warm beige-coloured limestone from France – the same material used by Pei in the reception hall of the Louvre. Compared to marble, it creates a softer atmosphere and a more relaxed lightness. The colours of the stone, the silver space frame, the textured wooden louvers and the vegetation outside each counterbalance each other in wonderful harmony.
Perhaps the most spectacular part of Pei's achievement, however, is the approach to the hilltop "paradise". When you arrive at the site, you first see a modest reception pavilion amid cedar trees, facing a circular courtyard, and you may be forgiven for thinking this is the museum. Opposite this building is a wide curved walkway lined with peach trees that leads to the mouth of a gleaming stainless-steel-lined tunnel cut into a ridge. As you walk into this silent, echoless, vast tunnel – it is at least three traffic lanes wide – it sweeps you in a single, 200-metre curve until sunlight suddenly appears, and – through the graceful cables of a half suspension bridge cantilevered 120 metres across a deep, narrow gorge – you finally see the Chinese-style moon-gate entrance to the museum pavilion. Allow at least two hours to browse the exhibits – each stunning piece was carefully selected as much for its artistic beauty as its historical significance, and the whole collection is brilliantly displayed and skilfully lit.
Admission �1000, audio guide �500. Open from 10 AM to 5 PM daily except Monday; note that the museum is normally closed from mid-December to mid-March, as well as parts of June/July and August/Sept, so check the calendar first.
From Kyoto station, take a twenty-minute train ride with JR to Ishiyama on the south shore of Lake Biwa (�230) and from there a very pleasant and scenic 40-minute cab ride or shuttle bus (from bus bay 3 at Ishiyama station, �800) through semi-rural areas with rice paddies to the museum's reception pavillion. Last returning bus to Ishiyama is 1715.
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Koka Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.