Simose Art Museum

Along the seashore of Otake, facing the Seto Inland Sea, a long wall of mirror glass stretches along the water. Simose Art Museum, opened in 2023, sits by the sea in western Hiroshima Prefecture and is a museum whose architecture is itself a highlight. It was designed by architect Shigeru Ban and stands on a site overlooking Itsukushima and the Seto Inland Sea.

The building's most distinctive feature is that the entrance building, the special exhibition building and the administration building are linked by walkways and read as a single mirror-glass screen 190 meters long and 8.5 meters high. The outer wall reflects the surrounding mountains, sky and sea, and changes its look with the time of day and the weather. On the seaward side is a pool of water, and eight exhibition rooms are arranged on it. Inspired by islands, the rooms have colorful exteriors and are movable, so their layout can be changed. The total floor area is 5,865 square meters.

The core of the collection is about 500 works gathered over more than 50 years by the Simose family, who run Marui Sangyo. It includes Japanese dolls such as hina dolls and Art Nouveau glass, notably by Emile Galle, as well as Western paintings by Millet, Pissarro, Renoir, Rousseau, Matisse, Chagall and Laurencin, and Japanese-style and Western-style paintings by Tsuguharu Foujita, Takeuchi Seiho, Yokoyama Taikan, Higashiyama Kaii, Kishida Ryusei, Saeki Yuzo and others. Because the displays change with each exhibition, you meet different works on every visit.

On the grounds are a French restaurant, the Museum Cafe, and "Simose Art Garden Villa," an accommodation facility made up of 10 villas. In December 2024 the museum won the Versailles Prize as "the most beautiful museum in the world," and in 2025 it also received the 66th BCS Prize. A night museum is also planned as a special winter program.

The museum is open from 9:30 to 17:00, with last admission at 16:30. To see the exhibits, the architecture and the garden together, allow about two to three hours. Nearby sights include Iwakuni Castle, Kintai Bridge and Mt. Misen, so the museum also works as a stop on a trip across western Hiroshima and eastern Yamaguchi.