Tajimi, Ceramic production center in Gifu Prefecture, Japan
This ceramic production city lies in southern Gifu Prefecture, where low hills and residential blocks spread between industrial zones and forested slopes. The center consists of narrow streets lined with workshops, shops and modest commercial buildings that give way to fields and wooded areas at the edges.
The area served as part of Mino Province during the Edo period and was reorganized into a town in 1889. It gained city status in 1940 and grew as a ceramic manufacturing center through the postwar decades.
Many workshops in the center allow visitors to watch potters shape clay on wheels and try their hand at making small pieces. Shops along the streets sell teapots, bowls and tableware made in the regional tradition that locals use daily.
Travelers reach the city by regional train from Nagoya in under an hour, with services stopping at the central station. Workshops and shops lie within walking distance from the station and are generally open during daytime hours.
The mosaic tile museum houses around three hundred exhibits in a building embedded into a wooded hillside by an architect who used unusual materials and forms. The rooms open partly to the surrounding nature, connecting indoor and outdoor spaces in an unconventional way.
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