Pavilion Court (Former Yamanaka Partnership Art Museum)

What Is Pavilion Court?

Pavilion Court (Former Yamanaka Partnership Art Museum) is the former Kyoto branch of the art dealer Yamanaka & Co. in Awataguchi Sanjobocho, Higashiyama Ward, Kyoto City, where a display hall built when the branch opened in 1904, a Western-style building of 1920 and a gate were registered as Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan in 2003.

The Japanese name is パビリオンコート（旧山中合名会社美術館）, read Pabirion Kōto (Kyū Yamanaka Gōmei Gaisha Bijutsukan). The site faces Jingu-michi, the street that runs up to Chion-in and Shoren-in, and the operator gives its address simply as "opposite Shoren-in." The owner, Kyoto Yamanaka Shokai Co., Ltd., now runs the buildings as a wedding and event venue with a small café.

The three registrations carry consecutive numbers: 26-0158 for the Western-style building, 26-0159 for the Japanese-style building and 26-0160 for the gate. All three became a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on December 1, 2003, each under a different criterion: the Western-style building as a model of design, the Japanese-style building for its contribution to the historic landscape, and the gate as something that would be difficult to reproduce. Kyoto City has also selected and certified the complex under its own "Buildings and Gardens that Color Kyoto" program (certification No. 190).

Yamanaka & Co. and Its Kyoto Branch

Kyoto City describes Pavilion Court as the Kyoto branch of the business founded by the dealer Yamanaka Kichirobei. According to the company's own timeline, Kichirobei opened an antiques shop in Kitahama, Osaka, in 1882. In 1894 Yamanaka Sadajiro and a partner sailed for New York and opened a store there, and over the following decades Yamanaka & Co. became one of the best-known suppliers of Japanese and Chinese art to collectors and museums in America and Europe.

The Kyoto branch opened in 1904. Kyoto City records that it started with a wooden main building, now gone, and two display and workshop buildings. One of those two survives as today's Japanese-style building.

The company timeline says the Kyoto branch became independent in 1916 as Yamanaka Gomei Kaisha, a general partnership, which is where the "Former Yamanaka Partnership Art Museum" in the registered name comes from. In 1920 the branch added a Western-style display hall that doubled as a fireproof store for the stock. That hall is the present Western-style building.

The exterior of the Western-style building was remodeled in 1936, and the Japanese-style building was moved to its present spot within the site in 1967. A year later, in 1968, Kyoto Yamanaka Shokai Co., Ltd. was set up to take over the art sales business, and from 1992 the company began renting out the old showrooms under the name Pavilion Court. The gate was moved to its current position in 2002, and all three structures were registered the following year.

The operator lists among the shop's past visitors the British Prince of Wales who later became Edward VIII and the aviator Charles Lindbergh.

The Three Buildings of Pavilion Court and How to See Them

From Jingu-michi, the first things you see are the front of the single-story Japanese-style building and the small gate standing beside it. The Japanese-style building has a tiled roof and a band of diamond lattice above its windows, and it still acts as the shop front facing the street. The gate is an Udekimon, a gate whose roof rests on bracket arms, assembled from old timbers salvaged from temples and other buildings. It is just 2.0 m wide.

The Western-style building stands farther back from the street: brick, two stories above ground with one basement level. It helps to remember the original division of labor as you walk in. The Japanese-style building was a place to show and prepare objects, and the Western-style building was where the stock was stored and where foreign buyers were received. Moving from one to the other traces how the Kyoto branch grew from a Meiji-era wooden shop into a Taisho-era showroom.

Kyoto City values Pavilion Court for its unusual blend of Japanese, Western and Chinese design, and as a rare surviving set of display buildings from a prewar art dealer that shows one side of modern Kyoto's history.

Visiting Pavilion Court: Access and Opening Hours

Pavilion Court (Former Yamanaka Partnership Art Museum) is not a museum. It operates as a venue for weddings, concerts, exhibitions and private events, and there is no admission ticket for sightseeing. The ways to get inside are the café in a corner of the lobby, KYOTO YAMANAKA CAFE, a booked tour of the venue, or a public event such as a concert.

The café is open from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. (last orders 4:30 p.m.) and closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. On weekends and public holidays it may close or change its hours when the venue is booked for a private event, and the operator asks visitors to check its Instagram account for the latest schedule. Venue tours are offered during bridal fairs and can also be arranged for other inquiries (checked October 2, 2026).

No official guidance on photography could be found. If you want to take pictures inside, call ahead (075-561-0931) to ask.

Pavilion Court is about a 5-minute walk from Exit 1 of Higashiyama Station on the Tozai subway line; head along Jingu-michi toward Shoren-in. From JR Kyoto Station it is about 20 minutes by taxi or 30 minutes by subway. Parking is very limited and available by reservation only.