The Kanazawa Yasue Gold Leaf Museum ( ja, 1=金沢市立安江金箔工芸館) is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make thes ...

about gold leaf in

Kanazawa is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households, and a population density of 990 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Overview Cityscape ...

, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.

History

The museum was originally founded in 1974 by a local craftsman Yasue Takaaki in Kitayasue as a private museum named Yasue Gold Leaf Museum. The museum and all of its artifacts were donated to Kanazawa City Government in 1985 and subsequently renamed to Kanazawa Yasue Gold Leaf Museum. In 2010, the museum was relocated to Higashiyama by the city government due to the area close connection to gold leaf.

Architecture

The museum building was built on a 758 m² area of land. It consists of 3 floors with a total floor area of 1,393 m². The ground floor consists of library, multipurpose exhibition hall, office and outdoor information center with a total area of 498 m². The upper floor consists of permanent exhibition area, rest area, temporary exhibition area and video area with a total area of 444 m². The top floor consists of seminar room and Kanazawa-Haku Research Center with a total area of 438 m². The museum building was designed following the traditional Kanazawa storehouses embedded with gold leaf on its exterior wall. The Kanazawa-Haku Research Center is dedicated to the study of metal leaf industry in Kanazawa.

Exhibitions

The museum exhibits around 300 pieces of gold leaf artworks, history of gold leaf in Kanazawa, gold leaf production process and tools involved in its process. Artifacts consist of works from the early period of Japan,

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

and present day. Exhibits include folding screens, Kaga incrustation work, Kaga lacquer work, Kanazawa Buddhist altar, Kutani porcelain, Noh costumes etc.

Transportation

The museum is accessible within walking distance from right loop bus stop #4 or left loop bus stop #11 departing from

Kanazawa Station is a major railway station in Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan, operated by West Japan Railway Company (JR West), the private railway operator Hokuriku Railroad, and the third-sector operator IR Ishikawa Railway. Beneath a square in front of the J ...

West Japan Railway Company , also referred to as , is one of the Japan Railways Group (JR Group) companies and operates in western Honshu. It has its headquarters in Kita-ku, Osaka. It is listed in the Tokyo Stock Exchange, is a constituent of the TOPIX Large70 index, and ...

References

External links