21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art

If you visit Kanazawa make sure you reserve a couple of hours to wander between the exhibitions and installations of the contemporary art museum. The building was designed by Kazuyo and Associates + SANAA and opened in 2004. There is a big focus on making the museum a center for the community. Consequently there are plenty of open public spaces where you can rest, people watch, take selfies or interact with the art itself.

The museum houses work by international and Japanese artists. James Turell's Blue Sky Planet with its rectangular oculus is well worth exploring. However the big crowd-pleaser is Leandro Erlich's perception challenging swimming pool. Visitors to enter a replica swimming pool where only the water is missing.

The Museum of Contemporary Art from the 21st Century in Kanazawa is like a futuristic oasis amid a desert of traditions. Kanazawa is famous for its geisha neighbourhoods, its samurais, its precious Kenroku-in or its castle, which are all vestiges of the past. However, in 2004 a group of Tokyo architects called SANAA designed this spectacular venue. The exterior is very striking, it's a kind of very stiff cylinder with glass walls allowing a view of the interior corridors. Entrance to view the permanent exhibition costs only 350 yen, but if you don't have time to make it into the museum, I recommend you go to see the building, just for its exterior, or sit in the garden of the museum.