Lower Sagi Toriimoto Historic Preservation District

 

Sagi Toriimoto is an Historic Preservation District in Arashiyama, near Kyoto

In an earlier post, I covered the upper section, a group of thatched, 400 year old buildings, a couple of which still operate as eateries.

This section is more visited and includes plenty of retail establishments as well as private houses.

One of the old houses is open as a kind of free museum about the district.

The Sagi Toriimoto Town Conservation Museum is in a row of traditional machiya townhouses.

The exterior has a facade of lattices and mullioned windows.

The interior has raised tatami floors and some Meiji-era features including a coal-burning kitchen and interior water well.

The building dates back to the early Meiji Period and was renovated in 1993.

There are historic maps, photos, and architectural diagrams of the area.

A diorama shows how the area looked in 1930.

The previous post in this series on Arashiyama was on the upper section of Sagi Toriimoto.

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Osaka Science Museum

 

My final stop on my afternoon architectural exploration of Namba and nearby areas of Osaka was the Osaka Science Museum on Nakanoshima, adjacent to the National  Museum of Art.

The structure is primarily an oval. It opened in 1989.

It was designed by Environmental Development Institute, about whom I can find no info.

The two themes of the museum are Space, and Energy.

Kansai Electric was the primary funder of the museum, so the energy theme is not surprising.

The museum is home to one of the largest planetariums in the world.

From the aboce photo you would be forgiven for thinking you were in a shopping mall.

The museum seems to be aimed at younger visitors.

There are many interactive exhibits, and several times a day a Sciemce Show is performed.

I was in somewhat of a hurry to get to an appointment, so I did not look around.

In 2020, long after this visit of mine, the museum was completely renovated...

The previous post in this series was on the National Museum of Art by Cesar Pelli next door.

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Inside HITOHAKU

 

HITOHAKU in Sanda, Hyogo is a huge natural history museum.

I covered the exterior architecture in the last post in this series.

In English, it is called the Museum of Nature and Human Activities.

When I visited in 2017 there was little information in English, but now the whole museum is covered with smartphone-readable info in multiple languages.

It is not just a museum,but also includes several research facilities.

The museum's collections are staggering, with 152,000 geological items and more than 2,000,000 biological specimens.

Included in that are 1.3 million insects, 68,000 animals, and 641,000 plants.

The museum is spread over four floors and includes sections on the natural history of Hyogo, and the always-popular-with-kids dinosaur exhibits.

The human impact on nature is also covered.

I found the msueum and its displays surprisingly interesting, and good value. The most expensive entry fee is 200 yen.

The previous post in this series on my walk along the Kinki Fudo Myoo Pilgrimage was on the wonderful exterior of the museum.

if you would like to subscribe by email just leave your email address in the comments below. It will not be published and made public. I post new content almost everyday, and send out an email about twice a month with short descriptions and links to the last ten posts.