MOA Museum of Art, Art museum in Atami, Japan
MOA Museum of Art sits on Momoyama hill and displays around 3,500 works of Japanese art, including paintings, sculptures, ceramics, and traditional lacquerware. The collection holds three National Treasures, 67 Important Cultural Properties, and 46 Important Art Objects from different eras.
Mokichi Okada opened the Hakone Museum of Art in Gōra in 1952 and founded the Tōmei Art Preservation Society that September. The Atami Museum of Art followed on 1 January 1957, and the present MOA Museum of Art opened on 11 January 1982, the centenary of Okada's birth. It was renovated under the supervision of Hiroshi Sugimoto and Noritaka Sakakida's New Material Research Laboratory and reopened on 5 February 2017.
The name honors Mokichi Okada, a philanthropist and collector who viewed art as a means of spiritual healing. Visitors today see mostly works from the Edo period and earlier, including ceramics once used in daily life or tea ceremonies.
The museum stands on a hill above Atami, and the entrance is reached from the main lobby by seven escalators with a total length of about 200 m, climbing roughly 60 m of slope. A circular hall about 20 m across sits midway along them. The main lobby's glass wall is 32 m wide and 8 m high, facing the sea.
The museum houses a reconstructed 16th-century Golden Tea Room designed by architect Sutemi Horiguchi following traditional sukiya principles. This room shows the fine balance of material, light, and proportion that defined such historical tea houses.
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