a short walk are two stunning examples of modern architecture: Kenzo Tange’s Hyogo Prefectural Museum of History and Tadao Ando’s Museum of Literature. The former is a minimalist tour de force of concrete and glass cubes by the man many consider the godfather of modern Japanese architectural design. Tadao Ando is the force behind many of Naoshima’s art galleries (page 21) and the Omotesando Hills urban development (page 31), and the Museum of Literature is an example of his finest work, combining rough concrete, water features and angular patterns, with Himeji’s defining structure–the castle–providing the perfect backdrop.
Opening Times Open daily from 9 a.m. to at least 4 p.m. Getting There Himeji can be reached direct by train from Tokyo in 3 hours. From Osaka it’s an hour on the JR Sanyo Line. The castle is a 15-minute walk from Himeji Station. Contact Himeji Castle: himeji-castle.gr.jp Admission Fee ¥600 (¥720 with combined Koko-en ticket)
13 Naoshima, Island of Art
Cutting-edge art installations on a beautiful island
Two decades ago, the Japanese publishing company Benesse Holdings and the Fukutake Foundation chose the picturesque island of Naoshima as the site for a project aimed at showcasing the best of Japanese and international contemporary art, including the iconic Yellow Pumpkin (pictured) by Yayoi Kusuma. The result has been a spectacular renaissance, transforming a sleepy fishing island into an undoubted high point on the country’s art scene.
The Benesse Art Site Naoshima (BASN) project began in 1992 with the construction of the Tadao Ando-designed Benesse House, a strikingly sleek beachfront gallery and hotel that today includes in its collection pieces by David Hockney, Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol. That would be impressive enough, but on the sun-kissed beaches and wooded hills that make up Benesse’s grounds, there are also numerous outdoor art installations that for many visitors are the most memorable of Naoshima’s artistic offerings.
BASN has also had a hand in the island’s Art House Project, which began in 1998 and has seen a handful of the old wooden houses and an Edo-era shrine at the fishing village of Honmura converted into permanent art installations. Ando has also continued his involvement with Naoshima, designing the Chichu Art Museum, a cavernous concrete structure built into the island’s southern hills that opened in 2004 and holds works by Claude Monet, Walter De Maria and James Turrell. More recently, he was involved with Naoshima’s latest major gallery, the Lee Ufan Museum, dedicated to works by artist Lee Ufan.
Fans of the esteemed architect Tadao Ando should visit the Ando Museum, which features his signature use of unadorned concrete in a traditional 100-year-old wooden house, a fitting expression of his iconic architecture.
On Naoshima, there is art in unconventional locations as well. Inside and out, the island’s fully functional public bathhouse, I Love Yu (yu means “hot water” in Japanese), is a riot of pop art, mosaics and erotica designed by Japanese artist Shinro Ohtake.
The Naoshima Art Project is now extended to two other islands, Inujima and Teshima, offering a stunning look at some of Japan’s contemporary artists. Once on these islands, visitors, after paying an entrance fee to the art works, are free to walk around as they please. Against a backdrop of sea and sky, the airiness of the structures lifts the spirits, a soaring gesture into the future of art in Japan.
Getting There Ferries from Takamatsu (1 hour, ¥520) and Uno (an hour from Okayama; 20 minutes, ¥290) sail to Naoshima several times daily. Boats also go to Inujima and Teshima from Takamatsu on Shikoku and to Uno and Hoden on Honshu. Contact Benesse Art Site Naoshima: benesse-artsite.jp/en/Admission Fee Admission to Teshima ¥1,540; Inujima ¥2,160; Chichu Art museum ¥2,060.
14 Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park
A poignant memorial and a symbol of hope
Nothing has come to symbolize the horrors of nuclear war like the disfigured frame of the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Hall. Situated in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park, the Gempaku Dome (its familiar name) serves as a vivid reminder of the destruction that befell the city on the morning of August 6, 1945, when the 4,400-kilogram (9,700-pound) nuclear payload of the B-29 Super-fortress bomber named “Enola Gay” annihilated central Hiroshima in a split second, claiming some 80,000 lives.
As a trip around the park’s moving and in places harrowing museum reveals, that was just the start. Another 60,000 of Hiroshima’s then 350,000 residents died of injuries in the days and weeks that followed. And some two-thirds of the city’s structures were lost in the blast and ensuing firestorm, so it seems almost inconceivable that the dome, located in the bomb’s hypocenter, could survive. In part that’s why the Gempaku Dome speaks so poignantly to so many. It isn’t just a testament to the horror of nuclear war, its survival against the odds has come to represent hope, perseverance and the indestructibility of the human spirit, the same qualities that saw Hiroshima rebuild from rubble to become a thriving modern city. It’s impossible not to be moved when you stand before it.
The same can be said for many of the park’s other sights, among which the most heartrending is the Children’s Peace Monument, a 9-meter (30-foot)-high domed pedestal atop which a life-size bronze statue of a child holds aloft a giant paper crane. It is dedicated to 12-year-old Sadoko Sasaki, a leukemia patient in Hiroshima, who hoped she would be cured if she could fold 1,000 origami cranes, traditionally a symbol of health and longevity in Japan. Sadoko never got to 1,000, succumbing to her illness in 1955 before reaching her teenage years. Her classmates, however, continued to fold cranes for her and later successfully petitioned the nation to construct the Peace Monument in honor of Sadoko and the thousands of children whose lives were cut short by the blast. Thousands of schools around Japan contributed donations to fund the monument, and every year some 10 million cranes are sent here from around the world, some of which you’ll see on display in glass cases surrounding it.
Opening Times Museum open daily from 8.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Getting There Hiroshima can be reached by rail from Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo. Hiro-shima Airport also has connections to Tokyo, Sapporo and Okinawa. Contact Hiroshima Peace Site: pcf.city.hiroshima.jp Admission Fee Admission to the museum is ¥200 for adults and ¥100 for students.
15 The Holy Mountain of Koya-san
Monastic life on one of Japan’s most sacred sites
In 816, the Buddhist monk Kobo Daishi came upon Mount Koya (locally called Koya-san) while wandering the country in search of somewhere suitably meditative to establish a temple. One can only imagine what Koya-san was like then, but something about the densely wooded mountain must have resonated with Daishi because he chose Koya-san as the place to found the Shingon school of Buddhism. Today, some 120 Shingon monasteries cluster around the site of Daishi’s first temple, attracting a steady stream of pilgrims and tourists to what has long been considered one of Japan’s holiest mountains.
A first stop for many who make the journey south of Osaka, on train lines that
