Yamaga Lantern Museum

photo by Asturio Cantabrio · CC BY-SA 4.0

photo by NY066 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Nine artisans work in full view of visitors: it takes ten years to go from apprentice to master.

In the hall you walk around temples, castles and birdcages as tall as a child, made of washi (Japanese paper) and a little glue, without a single piece of wood or a nail. In the pavilion next door the artisans work in front of visitors: there are nine, six masters and three apprentices, and it takes about ten years to go from apprentice to master.

The museum occupies a former bank from 1925, built for the Yamaga branch of the Yasuda Bank: two storeys of reinforced concrete in Western style, in use as a bank until 1973, then bought by the municipality and opened as a museum in 1987. Since 2002 the building has been 登録有形文化財, that is, entered in the national register of cultural properties. About a hundred gilded lanterns are on display; new ones are made every year and shown at the Yamaga Lantern Festival, on 15 and 16 August.

ℹ️ Opens at 9:00. ⚠️ The sources disagree on the closing time: the Japanese Wikipedia article says 17:00, the tourist pages 18:00, and the museum's official website would not open; anyone going in the late afternoon should phone. Tickets 300 yen for adults, 150 yen for elementary and junior high school pupils. Closed from 29 December to 1 January. There are craft demonstrations in the separate pavilion and workshops where you make your own lantern. The museum is in the centre of Yamaga, on the old Buzen road, within the hot-spring town.

Sources: yamaga-tanbou.jp · ja.wikipedia.org · newt.net

All series · Open the map