Miho Museum

Rick — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:25:40 +0000

Looking out from the tunnel, catching a glimpse of the museum’s glass and steel roof.

Miho Museum: I.M. Pei’s Shangri-La

Rick Elizaga — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:24:35 +0000

When friends from the Bay Area visited last spring, we trekked out to Shiga to see the Miho Museum. Architect I.M. Pei called the museum, which is hidden in the mountains and built mostly underground, his Shangri-La. The journey to get there from Kyoto is a bit arduous — about 45 minutes by train plus another 50 by bus on winding roads. You arrive at a modest reception building in the middle of a nature preserve. From there, you ride an electric buggy into a tunnel lined in steel panels, passing through a mountain ridge. At the other end, a suspension bridge leads to a structure surrounded by trees and topped with what looks like the steep roof of a traditional mountain dwelling, only much larger and made out of glass and steel. That’s the main entrance to the museum. Most of the rest is underneath, cut into the hilltop and looking out over a valley on the other side. Inside the museum, the exhibition spaces and the antiquities on display — with the exception of a buddha or two — I found to be not very memorable. It’s the getting there, that tunnel, the feeling of discovering a secret temple in the woods, that stays with me.

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Miho Museum

Miho Museum: I.M. Pei’s Shangri-La