Asakura Museum of Sculpture, Art museum in Yanaka district, Japan

The Asakura Museum of Sculpture occupies Fumio Asakura's home and studio in Yanaka, completed in 1935: a three-storey ferroconcrete studio block with two basement levels and a two-storey residence, about 1,085 square metres in all. The residence is a sukiya-style design using logs and bamboo as motifs, planned by Asakura himself. The studio has a high ceiling and skylights; the third-floor Orchid Room, once his greenhouse, now shows cat-themed works.

Fumio Asakura settled on this Yanaka site in 1907, after graduating from the Tokyo School of Fine Arts, and rebuilt or extended the house at least eight times. The present ferroconcrete studio block and the two-storey residence were begun in 1928 and finished in 1935, when the Asakura Choso Juku also began teaching there. The family opened it as a museum in 1967, three years after his death; Taito ward took it over in 1986.

The rooftop garden served as both a teaching space and a place where art and everyday life merged together. Visitors today can see how this mixing of creative work with vegetable growing shaped the character of the space.

The museum is a five-minute walk from the north exit of JR Nippori Station. It opens from 9:30 to 16:30 and closes on Mondays and Thursdays, or the following day when those fall on a holiday, as well as over the New Year period and during special maintenance. Admission is charged.

The rooftop garden was the practical training ground of the Asakura Choso Juku, the school he ran in his studio from 1920 to 1944. Students grew radishes, turnips and tomatoes there, and the beds and flower plots have been recreated. The courtyard pond is fed by spring water from Yanaka and is ringed by five large stones shaped after the Confucian virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trust.