Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum

The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum is an open-air museum inside Koganei Park, in the city of Koganei in western Tokyo. It holds 30 historic buildings from the early Edo period to the mid-Showa era, each moved from its original site in Tokyo and restored, many of them furnished to show the daily life and trades of their time.

History

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government opened the museum on 28 March 1993 as an annex of the Edo-Tokyo Museum, on a site of about 7 hectares. Its purpose is to save buildings of cultural value that could not be kept where they stood. The Musashino Local History Museum occupied the site until 1991, and its collection passed to the new museum. Twelve buildings were open on the first day; the thirtieth, the De Lalande House, opened in 2013.

Buildings

The grounds are divided into three zones. The Center Zone starts at the visitor center, a hall built in 1940 for a state ceremony in front of the Imperial Palace. Near it stand the main house of the statesman Takahashi Korekiyo, built in 1902, whose second floor was a scene of the 26 February Incident of 1936, and the mausoleum of the former Jishoin temple from 1652, a Tokyo Metropolitan Tangible Cultural Property.

The East Zone recreates a street of the old shitamachi (下町), the merchant and craftsmen's districts. It is lined with shops, a police box and Kagiya, an izakaya said to date from 1856. At its end stands Kodakara-yu (子宝湯), a public bathhouse built in 1929 in Adachi, with a large karahafu, a curved temple-style gable, over the entrance.

The West Zone holds Edo-period farmhouses and the suburban homes of the early twentieth century. Among them are the house of architect Maekawa Kunio from 1942, the Koide House designed by Horiguchi Sutemi in 1925 and the residence of Mitsui Hachiroemon.

Events

Seasonal events use the buildings as they were once used, at New Year, on Children's Day and on the museum's anniversary. Summer and autumn evening openings light up the streets after dark, and the Tsunashima farmhouse in the West Zone stages traditional annual observances.