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Bato Hiroshige Museum

Little knownBarely documented in English. This is the kind of place the site exists for.

Researched and written by Hinato

Kengo KumaHiroshigeukiyo-earchitectureNakagawa

Photo: Suikotei / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0) · original

Bato Hiroshige Museum doesn't fit neatly into a single category, which is part of why it's easy to overlook in Tochigi.

Kengo Kuma built this museum in 2000, before he was internationally famous, and it is the building where his approach becomes legible: a long low structure roofed and screened entirely in fine cedar louvres, so that the whole thing reads as a wooden veil rather than a wall, dissolving into the hills behind it. It won a string of Japanese architecture prizes and it remains one of the most-visited buildings by architects in the region — which is faint praise in a town of a few thousand people up in the far north-east of Tochigi.

The collection is the reason it exists: a set of works by Utagawa Hiroshige, the ukiyo-e master of the Tokaido and the rain-streaked landscape, donated to the town by a local family. Seeing Hiroshige's prints and paintings under filtered light coming through slats of local cedar is a specific and very deliberate experience. Almost nobody comes here, which is the other half of it.

Visiting essentials

Cost

Special exhibitions ¥500 general | ¥300 high school and university students | Free for junior high school students and under

Hours

9:30 AM – 5:00 PM | Last admission 4:30 PM

Closed: Closed Mondays | The day after a national holiday | New Year period | Exhibition changeover periods

Best season

Year-round | Late October–November for the drive through the valley

How long to allow

60–90 minutes

Finding your way there

Access notes

Nakagawa, Nasu District. Car effectively required — this is a remote part of north-eastern Tochigi. Closed Mondays, the day after a national holiday, over the New Year period, and during exhibition changeovers. Admission for special exhibitions ¥500 general, ¥300 high school and university students, free for junior high school students and under.

Local tips

**Look at the building before the prints.** Approach on foot from the car park rather than heading straight in. The louvred roof and screens only work as an effect from outside and at an angle, and the way the structure sits against the hillside is the point of it. **Exhibitions rotate, so check what is on.** Works on paper cannot be permanently displayed, so the Hiroshige holdings are shown in rotation and the museum closes between shows. Confirm the current exhibition and that it is open before making the drive. **The closed days are compound.** Mondays, plus the day after any national holiday, plus changeover periods. In a week containing a holiday this can mean two closed days in a row. **Make a day of the drive.** Nakagawa is remote by Tochigi standards and there is little else nearby except the river and the hot springs at Bato. Treat the drive and the valley as part of the outing. **Pair it with Otawara.** The Nasu Kokuzohi stele at Kasaishi Shrine, a National Treasure, is about forty minutes away and is the other thing in this corner of the prefecture that repays a long drive.

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