21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art (金沢21世紀美術館, Kanazawa Nijūichiseiki Bijutsukan) is a contemporary art museum that opened in 2004. Designed by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, it is today one of Kanazawa’s key attractions receiving over 2 million visitors each year.
The museum hosts the work of contemporary artists from Japan and around the world, but it’s not just the art that visitors come for: the building itself stands out among the more traditional structures of the surrounding area—a 112.5 meter circular building with no main entrance and heavy use of glass features to limit its impact on Kanazawa’s cityscape.
There are a number of public spaces including a library and children’s workshops, as well as several permanent installations which can be seen for free including Leandro Erlich’s “Swimming Pool”, where visitors appear to be walking underwater, and Olaflur Eliasson’s “Color Activity House”, a series of coloured, circular screens outside the main building. The temporary exhibitions, of which there are 1-2 running at any given time, require an admission free.
