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Inujima Seirensho Art Museum

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

Researched and written by Hinato

InujimaSambuichi HiroshiYanagi Yukinoriindustrial ruinSetouchi art

Photo: Ludger Heide / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) · original

Inujima Seirensho Art Museum is easy to reduce to a photo stop, but the history behind it is what makes the stop worth making.

A copper refinery opened on Inujima in 1909 and closed ten years later when the copper price collapsed, leaving brick chimneys, flues and slag walls on an island of a few dozen people. In 2008 the architect Sambuichi Hiroshi turned the ruin into a museum that runs without mechanical heating or cooling: the long underground flues, built to draw smoke, now draw air, and the temperature is regulated by the geometry of the building and by the sun coming down a mirrored passage.

The work inside is by Yanagi Yukinori and takes as its subject the writer Mishima Yukio, using salvaged parts of the Tokyo house Mishima grew up in. The island's other component, the Art House Project, puts smaller works in and around the village. Everything here has to be reached by a ten-minute boat from Hoden port, and the last sailing governs the day.

Visiting essentials

How long to allow

3–4 hours including the boat crossing

Best season

Year-round | Spring and autumn for comfortable temperatures in an unconditioned building

Hours

10:00 AM – 4:30 PM

Closed: Closed Tuesdays (March–November) and Tuesday–Thursday (December–end of February); open on public holidays and closed the following day instead

Admission

¥2,100 booked online | ¥2,300 at the gate | Covers the refinery museum and the Art House Project | Free for age 15 and under, ticket still required

How to reach it

Access notes

Inujima 327-4, Higashi Ward, Okayama City. By bus from Okayama Station to Hoden Port, then by boat to Inujima and a short walk. Closed Tuesdays from March to November, and Tuesday to Thursday from December to the end of February; when a public holiday falls on a closing day the museum opens and shuts the following day instead. Admission ¥2,100 booked online or ¥2,300 at the gate, covering both the refinery museum and the Art House Project; free for those aged 15 and under, who still need a booked ticket.

Historical notes & tips

**Book online before you go.** It is cheaper than the gate price and the island has no capacity to absorb people who arrive without a ticket. **Check the boat timetable first, then everything else.** Sailings between Hoden and Inujima are limited and one of them runs only on museum opening days. Missing the last one on an island of a few dozen residents is a serious problem. **No air conditioning, by design.** The old smoke flues move the air and a mirrored corridor brings sunlight underground. In August it works better than it sounds, and in winter it is genuinely cold. **The Mishima work is built from his actual house.** Yanagi Yukinori used salvaged windows and fittings from the Tokyo home Mishima grew up in. This is not a reference; it is the material. **Do the Art House Project properly.** It is included in the ticket and spread through the village, and most people who rush it are the ones who mistimed the boat. **Naoshima and Teshima are the same ticket family but different islands.** Inujima is reached from Okayama rather than from Uno or Takamatsu, so it does not chain easily onto a Naoshima day.

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