🇯🇵Japan·Open to visitors

Osaka Prefectural Chikatsu Asuka Museum (大阪府立近つ飛鳥博物館)

Kanan, Osaka Prefecture

Sources checked October 2026

“A stepped museum from which the "Tower of Yomi" rises, designed beside a park of burial mounds, which earned Ando the Japan Art Grand Prize.”

Year: 1994
Architect: Tadao Ando
Type: Archaeology and ancient history museum
Access: Open to the public, closed on Mondays (Osaka Prefecture, October 2026)

Opened in 1994 in Kanan, Osaka Prefecture, the museum deals with the exchanges between ancient Japan and its neighbours and with how the Japanese state took shape; it stands beside the historical park of Chikatsu Asuka Fudoki-no-Oka, with its burial mounds. Tadao Ando designed its stepped building, from which the "Tower of Yomi" rises. The museum earned him the 26th Japan Art Grand Prize, for its inventive union of architecture and environment.

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In depth ≈ 2 min read

History

The museum opened in 1994 in Kanan, beside the historical park of Chikatsu Asuka Fudoki-no-Oka. Owned by Osaka Prefecture, it is the central cultural facility of Chikatsu Asuka, an area rich in imperial tombs and burial mounds. It is devoted to the links between ancient Japan and the outside world and to the birth of the state.

In May 1994 Tadao Ando received the 26th Japan Art Grand Prize for this museum, in recognition of the inventive union of architecture and environment it shows. He was the second architect to receive the prize, after Fumihiko Maki in 1980.

Architecture

The building, with a steel frame and reinforced concrete, follows the natural slope of the ground among the woods. Its roof forms a huge stairway, sometimes used as an open-air theatre and as a lookout over the surrounding plum and cherry trees; a tower, the "Tower of Yomi", rises at its centre. The floor area reaches 5,925 m2.

Seen from above, the large exhibition hall takes up the keyhole shape of many burial mounds. A sloping path leads visitors down to the lower level, as if they were going deeper into the tombs and back in time; the route ends in an atrium filled with daylight. The highly dynamic exhibition spaces are of a piece with the building's exterior and with the objects on display.

Use today

The permanent exhibition is divided into three zones: Chikatsu Asuka and international exchange, from the five kings of Wa to the age of Prince Shōtoku; the origins of the ancient state, with haniwa figures and the world of burial chambers; and present-day science and heritage, around the conservation of an ancient hauling sledge and scientific archaeology.

The museum also has a special exhibition room, a 250-seat hall, a high-definition corner, a library, a video corner, a café and a shop.

Visiting

The museum is open from 9:45 to 17:00; the exhibition rooms can be entered from 10:00 to 16:30. It is closed on Mondays (when Monday is a public holiday, the museum opens and closes the following day) and from 28 December to 4 January. Free parking for 80 cars is available.

From Kintetsu Kishi or Tondabayashi stations (Nagano Line), a bus runs to its terminus, the Chikatsu-Asuka Hakubutsukan-mae stop, about 600 m from the museum.