Meijikan, Western-style museum in Izushi, Japan
Meijikan is a Western-style museum building in Izushi that blends Japanese and European architectural approaches across its two floors. The structure displays design elements typical of Japan's rapid modernization period in the late 1800s.
Built in 1887 as the Izushi District Office beside the ruins of Izushi Castle, the building was moved about 300 metres northeast to its present site in 1939. It was designated a town cultural property in March 1982, opened to the public in 1984, and its interior was renewed in 2004.
The ground floor hosts a display on Izushi figures such as politician Saitō Takao, educator Sakurai Tsutomu, philosopher Katō Hiroyuki, warlord Yamana Sōzen and Zen monk Takuan Sōhō. The second floor is used for the Izushi Ceramic Art Triennale.
The museum closes on Mondays and over the New Year holidays (28 December to 4 January). It is open from 9:30 to 17:00, with last entry at 16:30. From the Izushi Eigyosho bus stop, reached by Zentan bus from Yoka, Ebara or Toyooka stations, the building is a ten-minute walk.
The building is one of only four former county offices still standing in Hyogo Prefecture, alongside those of the former Shichimi, Kanzaki and Mihara districts. Its pale asagi-blue walls were a fashionable colour in the Meiji period, and the Corinthian column capitals and pediment over the entrance porch mark it as a county office of that era.
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