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Trip ideas  /  5 days in Tokyo  /  Nezu Museum
Nezu Museum, Tokyo, Kanto
Museum · Tokyo, Kanto

Nezu Museum

Exhibitions from 1941.A reopening in 2009.A screen of irises.Sword fittings.

Photo: Kakidai, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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The collector

A private collection of art became a museum in 1940

The museum houses the private collection of pre-modern Japanese and East Asian art assembled by Nezu Kaichirō. The museum foundation was established in 1940 and began opening exhibitions to the public in 1941.

The war

The collection was moved out of central Tokyo during the war

During World War II the collection was safeguarded away from central Tokyo. It avoided the destruction suffered by the estate property in the bombing of May 1945, and exhibitions resumed in 1946.

The building

Kengo Kuma designed the new building that opened in 2009

The museum closed for a large-scale renovation starting in 2006. It reopened in the fall of 2009 with a new building designed by the Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. The museum is also known for its garden.

The screen

A folding screen of irises is the centerpiece of the collection

The museum houses more than 7,400 cultural objects, seven of them National Treasures. It considers the folding screen Irises by Ogata Kōrin the centerpiece. Kaichirō Nezu acquired it in 1914.

7,400cultural objects in the collection

The fittings

One of the largest collections of sword fittings in Japan

The collection includes 1,200 of the 3,000 pieces of Japanese sword fittings collected by the Meiji era industrialist Mitsumura Toshimo. It also holds Chinese bronzes of the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

Day 3, afternoon

It comes after Takeshita Street. Then Shibuya Crossing.

More stories from this trip idea

The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Nezu Museum, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.

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