Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Museum

How Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Museum Came to Be

Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Museum (河井寬次郎記念館, Kawai Kanjirō Kinenkan) is the former home and workshop of the potter Kawai Kanjiro (1890 to 1966) in the Gojozaka district of Higashiyama-ku, Kyoto City, where a kiln yard he took over in 1920 and a main house built in 1937 stand together; five of its structures were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties in 2000.

The museum calls itself Kawai Kanjiro's House in English. Its registered names all begin Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Museum (Former Kawai Kanjiro Residence), followed by the name of each structure, and the potter's given name is often printed in the simplified form 寛次郎. Kawai named the kiln Shōkei-yō (鐘溪窯).

Kawai was born in Yasugi, Shimane Prefecture, into a family of master carpenters. After the ceramics course at Tokyo Higher Technical School he joined Kyoto's municipal ceramics research institute and spent years on glaze research. In 1920 he took over the Gojozaka kiln of Kiyomizu Rokubei V and went independent. The Agency for Cultural Affairs' biography on Art Platform Japan notes that his home and studio shared the plot and that the kiln was a communal one fired by other potters as well.

The main house standing now replaced an earlier dwelling damaged by the Muroto Typhoon. Kyoto City credits the design to Kawai himself and the building work to his elder brother Kawai Zenzaemon, a carpenter from Yasugi. The house opened to the public as Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Museum in 1973, after the potter's death.

The Layout of Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Museum

The plot is long and narrow, running east from a lane. The main house faces the lane on the west side; behind it come a courtyard and then the workshop buildings. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the climbing kiln occupies the eastern end of the property, and the bisque kiln sits inside an earth-floored wooden shed attached to the east side of the pottery studio.

A walk through Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Museum follows the order of the work itself. You enter by the main house, look up into its double-height hall, and step out into the courtyard, where the two-mat small tea room stands. Further back are the pottery studio where Kawai threw his pots, the bisque kiln that gave shaped pieces their first firing, and the climbing kiln for the final one.

In 2016 Kyoto City added Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Museum to its lists of Landscape Important Buildings and Historic Scenery Buildings. The city's own feature places it among the buildings of Kyoto as a city of culture and art, tied to the long history of Kiyomizu ware around Gojozaka.

The Five Registered Structures of Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Museum

All five were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties on April 28, 2000, under consecutive registration numbers 26-0061 to 26-0065. The three living and working buildings were registered as models of design, while the two kilns were registered as structures that would be hard to reproduce.

• Main House: 1937, two-storey timber building with a tiled roof, building area 148 m²
• Small Tea Room: 1937, single-storey timber building with a tiled roof, building area 11 m²
• Pottery Studio: about 1929, single-storey timber building with a tiled roof, building area 54 m²
• Bisque Kiln: early Showa period, brick, 1.8 m deep and 1.6 m wide
• Climbing Kiln: Meiji period, brick, 15 m deep and 4.8 m wide

The climbing kiln is the oldest of the group and was already in Gojozaka before Kawai acquired it. The pottery studio is said to predate the new main house, and the main house and small tea room followed in 1937. Only the two kilns are built of brick; the other three are timber buildings under tiled roofs.

Visiting Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Museum

Kawai Kanjiro Memorial Museum is open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with last entry at 4:30 p.m. It closes on Mondays; when a Monday is a national holiday the museum opens and closes the following day instead. There are also summer and winter closing periods. Admission is 1,000 yen for adults, 500 yen for high school and university students and 300 yen for elementary and junior high school students (official information as of October 2026).

As a small private museum it generally does not accept tour groups. On weekdays only, groups of 7 to 10 people can ask in advance by telephone. There is no parking, so plan to arrive by public transport.

The nearest station is Kiyomizu-Gojo on the Keihan Line. Leave by the Exit 2 stairs, head east, and the walk takes about 10 minutes. From Kyoto Station take city bus 206, or from Shijo Kawaramachi bus 207, to the Umamachi stop, about 1 minute away on foot: walk west from the Umamachi crossing and turn north into the first lane.

The visit covers the whole property, from the main house back to the climbing kiln, and each structure has its own page with details. The museum publishes no rule on photography indoors, so ask at the reception desk.