The Japan folk crafts museum, Osaka

Now The Japan folk crafts museum, Osaka (大阪日本民芸館) (Sorry, but only in Japanese) is now holding the special exhibition of Shoji Hamada (浜田庄司), a famous folk-art ceramist, in commemoration of the 30th year since his passing.




Shoji Hamada (1894 - 1978) was one of the main members of Mingei Movement started by Muneyoshi (or Soetsu) Yanagi. Mingei means 'folk crafts,' and this word was coined by Yanagi, too. .

"Yanagi Soetsu discovered beauty in everyday ordinary and utilitarian objects created by nameless and unknown craftsmen. According to Yanagi, utilitarian objects made by the common people are “beyond beauty and ugliness”." -From Wikipedia
More about Mingei movement, refer to HP of The Japan folk crafts museum (日本民芸館) in Tokyo.

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The Japan folk crafts museum, Osaka was established as one of the exhibitions of Japan World Exposition in 1970. And it stayed in the Expo park as a museum after the Expo.

The Expo park is between Kyoto and Osaka, on the way to Osaka International Airport (Itami Airport) marked with orange. The green cirle shows the place of Osaka city. To get to the museum, you can take Hanshin Line from the city center of both Osaka and Kyoto to Ibaraki Station, then take a bus to the Expo Land. From Itami Airport, you can directly get there by monorail.

I have been surprised that many foreign tourists to Japan showed their interests in Mingei Movement. (I'm afraid many Japanese kids don't know about this movement though..) Oh, another good place to meet Mingei is Kawai Kanjiro Museun in Kyoto.


If you have a chance & interst, please do visit them(*'-')b !!