Miho Museum, Art museum in Kōka, Japan
The Miho Museum is an art museum in Koka, Japan, set within forested hills and extending mostly below ground. The building combines glass, steel and French limestone in a design that merges with the mountain landscape.
The museum opened in 1997 as a home for Mihoko Koyama's collection, which included Buddhist sculptures, paintings and tea ceremony objects. I.M. Pei designed the architecture in the nineteen nineties with close attention to the natural setting.
The museum takes its name from Mihoko Koyama, who opened her private collection to the public. Visitors today see a rotating selection from roughly three thousand works that span Japanese and Asian art across many centuries.
From Ishiyama station in Kyoto, a bus travels about fifty minutes through the mountains to reach the museum. The ride follows narrow roads through green valleys, so a morning arrival is often easier.
Three quarters of the building sits below ground, so only glass panels and part of the facade emerge from the hillside. A tunnel cuts through the mountain to the entrance, where daylight illuminates the underground rooms.
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