Sumida Hokusai Museum

What to know

The Sumida Hokusai Museum (すみだ北斎美術館, Sumida Hokusai Bijutsukan) is a museum dedicated to the ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai, commonly known as Hokusai. His most famous works include The Great Wave off Kanagawa and Red Fuji, two prints from the series Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji. The museum opened in November 2016 in Tokyo's Sumida Ward, where Hokusai was born and spent most of his life.

The permanent gallery on the fourth floor is a single, relatively small room, but it is filled with fascinating art and information. High-quality replicas of Hokusai's works are displayed here, along with multilingual panels and videos that provide detailed, bilingual insights into the artist, his life, his work, and the art of woodblock printing.

More space is dedicated to rotating temporary exhibitions on the third and fourth floors, which require an additional admission fee. These exhibitions allow visitors to see more of Hokusai's original artworks up close.

The four-story museum was designed by Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Sejima Kazuyo, one half of the architecture firm SANAA. The concept behind the striking architecture was to make the museum approachable from all sides, resulting in walkways that cut through the building at ground level and lead to the central entrance. The first floor also houses a museum shop and a small library with a good selection of English books on Japanese history, art, religion, and culture, in addition to books about Hokusai.

The Sumida Hokusai Museum is located in Tokyo's Ryogoku district, about a 5-10 minute walk from Ryogoku Station on the JR Sobu Line and Oedo Subway Line. Orientation in Tokyo