miho museum

I'm having a few dramas with blogspot and so for 4 days these photos of Miho Museum have been up on my blog with no text. Hopefully the text will upload today.

Last week when I was shuffling through bits and pieces in a gorgeous old box of things from Japan, I re-found these postcard images of one of the most incredible museums I have ever been to. The Miho is a museum with a futuristic structure plonked in the middle of the mountains of Japan, about 90 minutes by train and bus from Kyoto. It was designed by the American-Chinese architect, I M Pei, who amongst other things, also designed the Pyramids of the Lourvre in Paris. Miho Museum is one of those places, if you like architecture, galleries, museums and art, you should make an effort to go to if you're ever visiting Japan. Why? It's urban structures poke vividly out of the mountains of Shiga and present to you, right from the entrance, a very modern view of how art and history can be viewed. In the hills of Shiga surrounded by rice farms, you just don't expect to see this. I've been there twice and would easily go again. The last visit was especially good. My Australian friend C was visiting and we packed homemade bento lunches, along with our chopsticks and a flask of green tea and set off for a perfect early summer's day.