Miho Museum, Art museum in Kōka, Japan

The Miho Museum is an art museum in the Shigaraki area of Koka, Shiga Prefecture. About three-quarters of its 17,400 square metre building is cut into a rocky mountaintop, leaving a broad grey stone stair, a glass-and-steel triangular roof with a circular window, and walls of beige French limestone. A curved tunnel with lit arched recesses leads to the exhibition wing.

Mihoko Koyama, founder of Shinji Shumeikai, gathered Japanese art for over 40 years, and the museum opened in November 1997 to house it. She and her daughter Hiroko commissioned I. M. Pei, who called the design Shangri-La and sited three-quarters of the 17,400 square metre building inside a rocky mountaintop. Takeshi Umehara, a scholar of philosophy and religion, was the first director.

The museum is named after Mihoko Koyama, who assembled Japanese Shinto and Buddhist art, paintings, ceramics, lacquerware and tea utensils over more than 40 years. Its restaurant and tea room serve ingredients from Shumei Natural Agriculture, and the museum publicises that farming method. In 2017 the Louis Vuitton 2018 cruise collection show was held here.

Buses to the museum leave from Ishiyama Station on the JR Tokaido Main Line (Biwako Line) and take about 50 minutes; from Shigaraki Station on the Shigaraki Kogen Railway, a Koka city community bus reaches the museum in about 20 minutes. By car, take the Shin-Meishin Expressway to Shigaraki IC, then National Route 307 and Shiga Prefectural Route 12 for about 20 minutes. A taxi from Shigaraki Station takes about 20 minutes.

The approach follows a cherry-tree avenue to a tunnel and a suspension bridge before the entrance, and electric cars shuttle visitors between the reception building and the galleries. The design by I. M. Pei, who called it Shangri-La, buries about three-quarters of the 17,400 square metre building in a rocky mountaintop; the beige limestone walls and floors come from France, the same stone Pei used in the Louvre's reception hall.