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Compiled from supplied material, not independently verified item by item. Confirm opening hours, access and accuracy with the operator. Counts are records, not unique places.

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298 records · 3/13

熊本県 · Art & museums

Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art

熊本市熊本

A Maekawa building inside the castle grounds, with decorated tomb chambers rebuilt full size to be entered like the originals.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto

熊本市熊本

On the third floor of a shopping building and run together with a bookshop, with permanent rooms commissioned from artists.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Museum of Decorated Tumuli

山鹿市熊本

Half of Japan's painted tomb chambers are in Kyushu and most of those in Kumamoto - abstract circles and triangles drawn in the 400s.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Chibusan Tomb

山鹿市熊本

Geometric patterns and figures painted on the chamber wall; two circles read as breasts gave the tomb its name.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Kumamoto Castle

熊本市熊本

Its walls curve outward as they rise so no one can climb them; since the 2016 quake they are being rebuilt stone by numbered stone.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Suizenji Jojuen

熊本市熊本

The old Tokaido highway compressed into a garden, with a grassed mound standing in for Mt Fuji.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Shimada Museum of Arts

熊本市熊本

Miyamoto Musashi died in this city; the museum holds his own writing and the wooden swords said to be his.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Kumamoto Artpolis

熊本市熊本

A prefectural policy of commissioning named architects for public buildings - over a hundred, from fire stations to housing.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Former Hosokawa Gyobu Residence

熊本市熊本

A senior samurai residence where ceiling height and detailing change room by room with rank.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Higo Inlay

熊本市熊本

Fine grooves cut into iron and filled with hammered gold and silver - a sword-fitting craft now turned to jewellery.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Obake no Kinta

熊本市熊本

Pull the string and its eyes roll and its tongue shoots out - made from the same mould for three centuries.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Yatsushiro Municipal Museum

八代市八代

An early Toyo Ito public building: the store buried underground and grassed over so it reads as a hill.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Shohinken

八代市八代

A tea house and garden whose pond edge is kept low so the water reads wide from the seated eye.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Koda Ware

八代市八代

Patterns carved into the body and filled with white clay - a Korean inlay technique kept as a domain kiln.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Aoi Aso Shrine

人吉市人吉・球磨

Thatched roofs over Momoyama polychromy - the southernmost shrine buildings designated National Treasure.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Hitoyoshi Castle Ruins

人吉市人吉・球磨

Its walls end in a projecting lip - a rare feature in Japan, thought to come from Western fortification.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Sakitsu Village

天草市天草

A church at the end of a fishing village lane, its floor laid with tatami so the congregation kneels to pray.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Oe Church

天草市天草

A French priest paid for it out of his own pocket and had a local master carpenter build it, white on a hilltop.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Amakusa Ceramics and Porcelain Stone

天草市天草

Eighty percent of Japan's porcelain stone comes from this island - Arita and Hasami both depend on it.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Aso Shrine

阿蘇市阿蘇

Its two-storey gate collapsed in the 2016 earthquake; the timbers were salvaged and it took seven years to raise again.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Grasslands of Aso

阿蘇市阿蘇

A thousand years of deliberate burning keeps this caldera in grass - a landscape that exists only because people maintain it.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Yachiyoza Theatre

山鹿市熊本

Built by merchants pooling shares; its ceiling is covered in their painted advertisements, and it is still a working theatre.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Yamaga Lanterns

山鹿市熊本

Shrines and castles built from paper and paste alone - hollow, frameless, and light enough to dance with on the head.

熊本県 · Art & museums

Kutami Persimmon-Tannin Fans

山鹿市熊本

Paper toughened with persimmon tannin - insect-proof, water-resistant, and darkening with use.