Page 217 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide: Japan

WESTERN HONSHU  215

P Ohara Museum of Art
development that has swept Tel (086) 422-0005.
away so much of Japan’s Open Tue–Sun. &
architectural heritage. Kurashiki
means “storehouse village,” a P Archaeological Museum
reference to the dozens of Tel (086) 422-1542.
granaries (kura), characterized by Open Wed–Sun. &
mortar and black-tiled walls, that P Folk Art Museum
are the main feature of the town. Open Tue–Sun. &
In the heart of the old city, the
Bikan Historical Area just south P Japan Rural Toy Museum
Open daily. &
of the station, 200-year-old kura
flank a tranquil canal lined with  Ario Kurashiki
willows. Many of the kura have Tel (086) 434-1111. Open daily. &
been convert ed into galleries,
restaurants, Japanese inns, and t Fukiya
tasteful shops and boutiques.
The largest commercial Asian exhibits at the Japan Rural Toy Fukiya
conversion, a short walk from Museum, Kurashiki Okayama prefecture, Takahashi city.
the canal, is Kurashiki Ivy @ from Bitchu Takahashi.
Square, a com plex of shops, The Kurashiki Archaeo logical
restaurants, hotels, museums, Museum occupies an old kura A prosperous boom town at
and an orchid center housed in by the canal and includes items the center of a local copper
the former Kurabo Textile Mill. excavated in the region along and red-ochre mining industry
In the old district the finest with comparative objects from in the 19th century, Fukiya is
museum is the Ohara Museum of else where in the world. In the now a rustic hamlet tucked
Art. The collection was commis- Kurashiki Folk Art Museum are into some of the area’s most
sioned by industrialist Ohara folk crafts housed in connecting beautiful mountain countryside.
Magosaburo in 1930 on the kura. The Japan Rural Toy Well-to-do mine owners and
premise that great art should be Museum has a delight ful and mer chants put much of
accessible – even to the people extensive display of their wealth into build-
of a relative backwater such as traditional old toys, ing grand houses.
Kurashiki. It includes some rare both inter national Characterized by white
works by the likes of Matisse, and Japanese. plaster walls and red-
Renoir, Picasso, Degas, and Several of the latter ocher colored lattice-
Gauguin. Some genuine are painted red, a work windows and
masterpieces, like El Greco’s The defense, it was believed, doors, these distinct ive
Annunciation, are here. The annex, against smallpox. buildings, the work of
converted from a traditional A charming shop Woven rush shoes master carpenters, are
storehouse, houses an out- near the entrance from Kurashiki the village’s main
standing collection of works from sells traditional toys. cultural asset.
Japan’s mingei (or folk-craft) By the north exit of the station Several are open to the
movement, among them ceramic is Ario Kurashiki, a shopping public, including the former
objects crafted by Hamada Shoji, complex comprising two house of the ocher-rich
Kawai Kanjiro, and Bernard Leach, linked malls, which includes Katayama family, now Fukiya’s
founders of the movement top brands at Mitsui Outlet Local History Museum, several
in the early 20th century. Park and a food court. renovated stores, and an old
plaster-and-tile school house.
One of the prefecture’s six
International Villas, an inn
based on the design of a
traditional soy sauce ware-
house, is in Fukiya.
Just outside the village is
a copper and ocher mine,
which can be visited. An
unusual Edo-period home
called the Hirokane-tei,
about 4 km (2 miles) outside,
resembles a fortified chateau.
P Local History Museum
Open daily. &
E Hirokane-tei
One of Kurashiki’s storehouses, now a shop Open daily. &

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