The MOA Museum of Art in Atami

Why it is on the list

The collection runs to about 3,500 works, with three National Treasures: Ogata Kōrin's Red and White Plum Blossoms screens, Nonomura Ninsei's tea-leaf jar with a wisteria design, and the calligraphy album Tekagami Kanboku-jo; 67 more pieces are Important Cultural Properties.¹ In 2016 and 2017 the galleries and common areas were rebuilt over eleven months by the New Material Research Laboratory of Hiroshi Sugimoto and Tomoyuki Sakakida.² The main building stands 270 m above the sea; the lobby window is 8 m high and 32 m wide and faces the ocean, and the grounds hold a Noh theatre with a cedar stage, a reconstruction of Kōrin's last house with the upper-floor studio where the plum screens are believed to have been painted, and the teahouse Ippaku-an by Nahiko Emori.³

For landscape and architecture rather than a collection, take Enoura Observatory instead. It closes on Thursdays, except on national holidays, and at other times between exhibitions.⁴

How to get it

From Atami station, a taxi takes about 7 minutes, or the bus from stand 8 of the station bus terminal to its last stop; by car from Tokyo it is about 2 hours, with 200 free spaces by the 3rd floor entrance.⁴ Hours are 9:30 to 16:30, last entry 16:00, and adult admission is 2,000 yen; no time slot is needed.⁴ For lunch, the kaiseki at Nijo-shinmachi Etsu in the tea garden is only for groups of five or more, 11:00 to 14:00, booked by phone on +81 557 84 2511 between three weeks and three days ahead; it is closed on Thursdays and Fridays and served only to museum visitors.⁵

Discretion

Arriving by car, use the 3rd floor entrance, where the car park is; the other way in is a 200 m underground run of escalators from the lower gate.⁴³ Still photographs for personal use are allowed, but not of loaned works, and flash, tripods and selfie sticks are not.⁶