Kadokawa Culture Museum
Located in Saitama Prefecture, the Kadokawa Culture Museum is less than an hour from Tokyo
Designed by Kengo Kuma, it’s both a library and museum
Quite an unexpected sight. You walk through a typical residential neighborhood and then boom - a giant space rock castle type of thing appears.
The Kadokawa Culture Museum (also known as Kadokawa Musashino Museum) was designed by Kengo Kuma, the architect who did the Tokyo Olympic Stadium amongst a lot of other notable buildings.
Enter the rock and it’s a fully functional, 5-story museum and library.
HOW TO GET THERE
The Kadokawa Culture Museum is located in Higashi-Tokorozawa, and is about a 10 minute walk from the station. From Ikebukuro Station in Tokyo, it’s about a 40-minute trip with one transfer.
Kadokawa Culture Museum
The Bookshelf Theater in the library.
The Bookshelf Theater is one of the more notable parts of the museum. It’s two-stories high and they put on an impressive projection mapping show that incorporates the books on the shelf.
The library itself is modern with stools and chairs to sit in as you browse, and incorporating video at times in order to tell the story that’s in the books on the shelf.
Personally, I found it to be a good take on what libraries should do in order to modernize and stay relevant.
There are also special exhibitions and art galleries to browse through in the building.
Tickets grant you access to different parts of the museum. You can get them on their website.
Musashino Reiwa Shrine
Musashino Reiwa Shrine torii gate tunnel
One of the other notable sights in this this cultural complex is the Musashino Reiwa Shrine.
It represents Reiwa, which is the current period on the Japanese calendar, so everything is done in a very futuristic way. From the minimalistic water fountains, to the sharp-edged torii gate tunnel, to the illuminated main torii gate, it’s interesting to see a modern take on Japanese shrines.
Musashino Reiwa Shrine
Check out my video of my day trip here and to Kawagoe.