Chichu Art Museum

photo by 663highland · CC BY 2.5

photo by 663highland · CC BY 2.5

Almost entirely underground, with five of Monet's Water Lilies in a room designed specifically for them.

Almost entirely buried so as not to spoil the landscape of the Inland Sea, the building lets in natural light through openings calculated for each room. The Water Lilies Room holds five canvases by Claude Monet amid tiles of white marble, where daylight changes how the paintings look over the course of the day. Other rooms hold a work by James Turrell and an installation by Walter De Maria: a 2.2-metre granite sphere among twenty-seven gilded forms.

Opened in 2004 to a design by Tadao Ando, it is part of Benesse Art Site Naoshima, the project born in 1985 from the meeting between the publisher Fukutake Tetsuhiko and the island's mayor.

ℹ️ Open 10:00–17:00 (last entry 16:00), closed on Mondays (if a public holiday, closed the following day). Online booking required, with date and time slot. Tickets 2,500 yen on weekdays, 2,700 yen at weekends/on public holidays (online; more expensive on site); free for under-15s. Photography, video and sketching are not allowed inside.

🚉 Yakuba-mae (Town Hall) · 26 min walk

Sources: benesse-artsite.jp · benesse-artsite.jp

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