Hayashibara Museum of Art

A Museum on the Site of Okayama Castle's Reception Hall

The Hayashibara Museum of Art (林原美術館, Hayashibara Bijutsukan) is an art museum on the former Ninomaru, the second bailey of Okayama Castle, in Marunouchi, Kita-ku, Okayama City; it opened in 1964, and five of its buildings, including the main building completed in 1963, a late-Edo gatehouse and three Meiji-period storehouses, became Registered Tangible Cultural Properties of Japan in 2023. The grounds sit just west of the castle's inner moat, on the spot where the Ikeda lords once kept their taimenjo, a formal hall for receiving guests.

The reception hall itself did not survive the Meiji era. According to the museum's English guide, the former lords of the Ikeda clan then used this corner of the old bailey as their administrative office, and by around 1909 a gate and a row of storehouses had already been brought here from another samurai estate.

The museum exists because of one collector. Hayashibara Ichiro (1908 to 1961) took over his grandfather's starch syrup business in Okayama and turned it into a major manufacturer, while spending his free hours on the study of Japanese swords. His interest widened to East Asian art in general, and he acquired the heirlooms handed down in the Ikeda family, the daimyo of Bizen Province. He died in April 1961 at the age of 52. His family, backed by the prefectural governor of the day, Miki Yukiharu, set up a foundation that July.

The building was finished in 1963 and the museum opened on 1 October 1964 under the name Okayama Art Museum, returning to the Hayashibara name in 1986. The collection now runs to about 9,000 objects: swords and armor, paintings, calligraphy, Noh masks and robes, lacquerware and ceramics. There is no permanent display. Everything is shown in rotating exhibitions.

A Gate and Three Storehouses from the Ikusaka Estate

Four of the Hayashibara Museum of Art's five registered buildings were not built here. The nagayamon gatehouse and the East, Central and West Storehouses came from the Ikusaka Mukai-yashiki, a residence of the Ikusaka branch of the Ikeda family. Okayama Prefecture's heritage office places that estate near the site now facing Runesu Hall in central Okayama.

Ikusaka was a small subsidiary domain of 15,000 koku, with most of its land in Kuboya District of Bitchu Province, today part of Kurashiki and Soja. Its first lord, Ikeda Terutoshi, was the third son of Ikeda Mitsumasa of Okayama. After the domains were abolished, the branch family's gate and storehouses ended up inside the main family's former castle bailey.

Sources date the move a little differently. The prefecture gives about 1909 for all four buildings. The Agency for Cultural Affairs database describes the gate as moved in the late Meiji period and gives two dates for the Central Storehouse, about 1893 and about 1909. The individual building pages follow the Agency's wording.

Two Different Grounds for Registration

After the Council for Cultural Affairs submitted its recommendation on 17 March 2023, the five buildings of the Hayashibara Museum of Art were entered on the national register on 7 August 2023, under consecutive numbers 33-0351 to 33-0355. The registered owner at the time was Hayashibara Co., Ltd., which renamed itself Nagase Viita Co., Ltd. in April 2024.

Two registration criteria were applied. The main building was listed as a model of architectural design, a judgement on the quality of Maekawa Kunio's modernist work. The gatehouse and the three storehouses were listed for their contribution to the historic landscape: a samurai gate and storehouses lined up along an old castle stone wall.

Put in order of construction, the gatehouse dates to the late Edo period, the East and Central Storehouses to the early Meiji years, the West Storehouse to 1881 and the main building to 1963. Buildings spanning roughly 130 years were each registered as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on the same day.

Finding Your Way Around the Grounds

The Hayashibara Museum of Art faces a street on its east side, and the only way in is through the east-facing nagayamon. Beyond the gate a flight of stone steps climbs beside the Ishigaki stone wall to the entrance of the main building. Maekawa used the level change of the old bailey as part of the approach.

The main building fills the middle of the site, its galleries forming an L around a small courtyard planted with bamboo. The three storehouses stand on the northern edge, along the stone wall, in the order East, Central and West. They grow larger as you move west: 89, 148 and 176 square meters in building area. The Agency's photographs treat the south side of each as its front.

A natural route is to look at the gate first, climb the steps, walk the galleries in one loop and return to the lobby. Because the storehouses are grouped at the far north end, ask at reception where their exteriors can be seen before you set off.

Hours, Admission and Getting There

The Hayashibara Museum of Art is open 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., with last entry at 4:30 p.m. It closes on Mondays (or the following day when Monday is a public holiday), during exhibition changeovers, which are irregular, and over the New Year period. Since there is no permanent display, the whole museum shuts between exhibitions.

Admission for the museum's own themed exhibitions is 600 yen for adults, including high school students. Junior high school students and younger children enter free. Groups of 20 or more and holders of a disability certificate pay 500 yen, and one accompanying caregiver is free. Special exhibitions are priced separately.

On foot, the museum is about 25 minutes from JR Okayama Station. By bus, take an Okaden bus bound for Takaya, or a Uno bus bound for Seto Ekimae or Shinogoze, to the Kenchomae stop, then walk 3 minutes. By tram, ride the Higashiyama line to Kenchodori and walk 7 minutes. The museum's telephone number is 086-223-1733.

Wheelchair users can call staff from the internal phone just inside the gate on the right (extension 13 or 14); staff will operate a lift up to the entrance ramp, and there is an accessible toilet inside. The museum's visitor guide says nothing about photography, so ask at reception before taking pictures.