Tokugawa Art Museum Main Building

What the Tokugawa Art Museum Main Building Is

The Tokugawa Art Museum Main Building (徳川美術館本館) is an exhibition building in Tokugawacho, Higashi-ku, Nagoya City, completed in 1935 and entered on the national register as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property (structure) in 1997. It was purpose-built to hold and display the household goods handed down in the Owari Tokugawa family.

The structure is steel-framed reinforced concrete, 1 story above ground and 1 basement level, with a building area of 506 square meters. The roof is tiled with green-glazed tiles. The outer walls are handled in a way that recalls a castle rampart, and shachi ornaments sit on the ridge.

According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs record, the winning entry in a design competition formed the basis for working drawings prepared by Yoshimoto Yoshio, and Takenaka Corporation carried out construction. The museum's own account adds that the exterior design was chosen through an open call, that work began in 1932, and that the building was finished in 1935.

Why the Tokugawa Art Museum Main Building Was Registered

The registration criterion applied to the Tokugawa Art Museum Main Building is that the building is a model of its type in form and design. Japan's registration system for tangible cultural properties began in 1996 and works by notification rather than by designation, and this building was taken up in the third round of registrations under registration number 23-0003. That places it among the earliest registered buildings in Aichi Prefecture.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the design as belonging to the teikan style, in which a Japanese tiled roof is set over a steel or reinforced concrete frame. The manner was common in government offices and museums built in the early Showa era. What makes this example unusual is the client: a private institution holding the possessions of a former daimyo house rather than a ministry or a city hall.

The Tokugawa Art Museum South Storehouse, immediately to the west, was registered on the same day under number 23-0004. The two share an architect and a builder, they are physically joined, and their elevations read as one continuous mass. The pairing matters for understanding the registration: what was recognised was a working museum of the 1930s, storage and display together, rather than a single handsome facade.

What to Look For at the Tokugawa Art Museum Main Building

The first thing you notice on the approach is the sheer weight of the wall. In a district of ordinary houses, this one corner has a different texture altogether.

Look up and the green-glazed tiles return light dully rather than brightly. Shachi ornaments, the mythical fish-tailed creatures long placed on castle roofs in Japan, sit on the ridge. The Agency for Cultural Affairs singles out three features of the exterior: the rampart-like walls, the green-glazed tile roof, and the shachi. Following them in that order is a quick way to read the architect's intent.

Inside, the building is still doing its original job. The museum floor map lists the Main Building galleries alongside the Masterpiece Collection galleries and the Hosa Library galleries. The entrance hall belongs to the new wing added in 1987, so visitors come in there and reach the Tokugawa Art Museum Main Building later in the route.

Toward the western side of the site, the South Storehouse of the same year joins on. Seen together, the tiled roofs and heavy wall planes make it clear that the two were planned as one group.

Visiting the Tokugawa Art Museum Main Building

The Tokugawa Art Museum Main Building is open as gallery space, so the museum admission ticket gets you inside. Opening hours run 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with last admission at 4:30 p.m. The museum closes on Mondays; when a Monday falls on a public holiday or a substitute holiday, the closure moves to the next weekday.

Admission covers both the museum and the Nagoya City Hosa Library: 2,000 yen for adults, 1,200 yen for high school and university students, free for elementary and junior high school students. Allow 60 to 90 minutes for the galleries. Re-entry is not permitted, so finish what you want to see before you leave the building.

Photography is allowed in the galleries with a smartphone, a tablet, or a compact camera. Some individual works may not be photographed, and notices at the gallery entrances say which.

The nearest station is Ozone on the JR Chuo Line, about 10 minutes on foot from the south exit. From Ozone on the Meijo subway line, use exit E5 and allow about 15 minutes. City buses and Meitetsu buses stop at Tokugawaen Shindeki, about 3 minutes away. The galleries are accessible by wheelchair and stroller, and both are lent free of charge.