Miho Museum

Miho Museum　ミホミュージアム

Overview

The Miho Museum is world-class collection of Asian art (and some western antiques) located in the hills of Shiga Prefecture outside of Kyoto.

Miho was designed by I.M. Pei, the renowned American architect.

The facility was built in and around a mountain in Shiga. To gain approval from local authorities, parts of the mountain were literally moved, construction took place, and then the mountain was put back where it had been.

It is just outside the town of Shigaraki, which is famed for pottery and its soil.

The Miho Museum was completed in August 1996.

The area of the building site is 1,002,000 m2 (10.8 million sq. feet, 247 acres); the building itself is 9,241 m2 (99,469 sq. feet).

Mihoko Koyama, for whom the museum is named, is one of the richest women in Japan. She is the heiress to the Toyobo textile business, and the founder of the Shinji Shumeikai spiritual movement. She found the land, hired I.M. Pei, and got permission to build - all to house her collection of Asian art.

The collection, which numbers in the thousands, is thought to be worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Relevant Routes

The Miho Museum is off the Lake Biwa Route. 

Address

300, Tashiro Momodani, Shigaraki, Shiga 529-1814
Tel. +81 (0)748 82 3411

Hours

10:00 to 17:00 (Admission until 16:00); 1,000 yen adults; 800 yen High School/ College Students; 300 yen Elementary School students. Note: the museum is closed for parts of the year. It closes in December and reopens in March; it is also closed for much of June.

Map

Miho Museum Map

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