21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

photo by ajari from Japan · CC BY 2.0

photo by sergejf · CC BY 2.0

A glass circle with 4 entrances and no main façade.

Visitors find a single-storey glass disc, with galleries of different shapes and heights scattered like islands; the four entrances, one on each side, leave the museum without a main front, and whoever arrives finds a door anyway. The exchange zone, which is free, stays open until 22:00, while the collections and the paid exhibitions close in the afternoon.

Built on the site of a former elementary school in the administrative heart of Kanazawa, next to the Castle and Kenroku-en, it was conceived as a museum ‘open like a park’: with no set route through it, and one you can cross just to reach the other side of the block. Designed by SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryūe Nishizawa, Golden Lion at the 2004 Venice Biennale, Pritzker Prize in 2010), it opened to the public in 2004.

ℹ️ Exhibition zone: 10:00–18:00 (Fridays and Saturdays until 20:00), closed on Mondays (or the following weekday if it is a public holiday) and at the end of the year. Exchange zone: 9:00–22:00, closed only at New Year. Free admission to the exchange zone; permanent collection 450 yen for adults, free up to high school. The most photographed work, Leandro Erlich's ‘Swimming Pool’, requires a separate ticket.

🚉 Nomachi · 23 min walk

Sources: kanazawa21.jp · kanazawa21.jp · hot-ishikawa.jp

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