Nara National Museum
 Entrance to the main building of the museum |
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| Data | |
|---|---|
| place | Noboriōji-chō, Nara , Nara Prefecture |
| Art |
National Museum
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| architect | Katayama Tōkuma, Junzō Yoshimura |
| opening | April 1895 (founded in 1889) |
| Number of visitors (annually) | 450,235 (2012) |
| management |
Ken'ichi Yuyama
|
| Website | |
The Nara National Museum ( Japanese 奈良 国立 博物館 Nara Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan ) was founded in 1889 and is one of the oldest museums in Japan . It is located in the city of Nara, which was the capital of Japan from 710 to 784. The museum has been part of the " Organization of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage " ( 国立 文化 財 機構 , Kokuritsu Bunkazai Kikō , English National Institutes for Cultural Heritage ) since 2007 . The museum is located in a park in close proximity to the temples Tōdai-ji , Kōfuku-ji and the Kasuga-Taisha shrine. The focus of the museum's work lies in the collection and development of Buddhist art, including archaeological artifacts , and in the protection and preservation of cultural assets.
overview
The reason for founding the museum was the World Exhibition in Paris in 1878 . One of the circumstances accompanying the founding was the Haibutsu kishaku movement that flared up again during the Meiji Restoration in the 1890s and aimed at the abolition of Buddhism . This threatening development was countered in Nara with an exhibition of important Buddhist temple treasures by the semi-state organization "Nara Hakubutsu Kaisha". In 1888 this prompted the Imperial Court Ministry to set up a “special investigation facility for national cultural assets” ( 臨時 全国 宝物 取 調 局 ) and a year later to found the Nara National Museum.
The designs for the building, which was built in the style of the French Renaissance and completed in 1894, came from Katayama Tōkuma (1854-1917). The National Museum first opened its doors to visitors in April 1895. In the course of a reorganization of state authorities around the turn of the century, the museum was initially named "Imperial Museum Nara" ( 帝国奈良 博物館 ). The museum recorded its first visitor record immediately after the end of the war in 1946. The exhibition "Treasures of the Imperial Palace in Kyoto" ( 京都 御所 宝物 展 , Exhibition of Kyoto Imperial Palace Treasures ) drew 150,000 visitors to the museum within 22 days. In 1952 the museum was officially named "Nara National Museum", which it still bears today.
In 1969 the museum was declared an important cultural asset . The following year the museum was expanded to include an additional building designed by Junzō Yoshimura (1908–1997). The west wing of the new building was completed on March 31, 1972, the east wing in October 1997. Since the completion of the east wing, the main building has been used to display Buddhist sculptures. The last innovation in 2000 was a modern and contemporary collection for the conservation and preservation of art treasures.
The museum has also had a library on Buddhist art since April 1980, which was also declared an important cultural asset in 1983. The library building was designed by Tadashi Sekino (1867–1935) and has originally been used as an exhibition hall for products from the Nara region since 1902. Since 1980 the building has been used as a research center for national cultural assets and since 1982 as a library. The building was renovated between 2009 and 2011. a. to make it more earthquake proof.
The current total area of the museum is 78,760 m², of which 19,116 m² is building space and 4079 m² is exhibition space.
Exhibition rooms and archives
The museum is dedicated to exhibiting Buddhist works of art, religious accessories, and archaeological artifacts. According to the online database, the museum owns 13 national treasures and 109 important cultural assets.
Buddhist sculptures and ritual bronze objects
The permanent exhibition in 13 rooms of the main building shows representative sculptures from China and Japan from the Asuka to the Kamakura period . The rooms also house the "Sakamoto Collection", a collection of ritual bronze objects.
East and West Wings
The east wing of the extension is used for annually changing exhibitions. The focus of these exhibitions is on exhibits from the Shōsōin , the treasure house of the nearby Tōdai-ji temple . In the monthly rotating exhibition in the west wing, visitors will find works of fine art, handwritten documents and archaeological finds. The main and auxiliary buildings are connected by a corridor, built in 1997, which houses the museum shop, photographs and replicas of Buddhist sculptures.
Outdoor area
In the park around the museum you can find the Hassōan tea house ( 八 窓 庵 , literally: eight-window hermitage) and the original stands of the west and east pagoda of the Kasuga Taisha shrine. The tea house, built in the Edo period , which has eight windows and follows the preferred style of the tea master Furuta Oribe , is one of the “three tea houses of the Yamato region”. It is four tatami mats and has an Irimoya style roof .
Of the two pagodas that were burned by Taira no Shigehira in 1180 and their reconstruction burned down again by a lightning strike in 1411, only the original stands are preserved today. It is assumed that the five-story structures were around 50 m high.
Archives
The museum has a database in which around 1300 items from the collections are listed and which is also accessible online in English. In addition, the museum offers an image database that is also accessible online, but only in Japanese, and provides information on around 100,000 images. The library on Buddhist art belonging to the museum has 67,000 books, around 3,000 magazines, around 10,000 exhibition catalogs and around 128,000 photographs.
Individual evidence
- ↑ 組織 図 Organizational Chart. (PDF; 664 kB) (No longer available online.) National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, 2013, archived from the original on December 2, 2013 ; accessed on November 26, 2013 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ 当 館 に つ い て . Nara National Museum, accessed November 25, 2013 (Japanese).
- ↑ a b c About Nara National Museum. Nara National Museum., Retrieved November 25, 2013 .
- ↑ a b Buddhist Art Library. Nara National Museum, accessed November 25, 2013 .
- ↑ 収 蔵 品 デ ー タ ベ ー ス . Nara National Museum, accessed November 25, 2013 (Japanese).
- ↑ 収 蔵 品 デ ー タ ベ ー ス . Nara National Museum, accessed November 25, 2013 (Japanese).
- ↑ Hassōan (Eight Window Hermitage) Teahouse. Nara National Museum, accessed November 25, 2013 .
- ↑ Collection Database. Nara National Museum, accessed November 25, 2013 .
- ↑ 画像 デ ー タ ベ ー ス . (No longer available online.) Nara National Museum, archived from the original on November 17, 2013 ; accessed on November 25, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Web links
- Official website of the museum. Nara National Museum, accessed November 25, 2013 .
- Nara National Museum. (PDF; 1.7 MB) Nara National Museum, accessed on November 25, 2013 (information brochure in German).
Coordinates: 34 ° 41 ′ 1.3 ″ N , 135 ° 50 ′ 11 ″ E