“Is that building floating?” I overheard a visitor ask. The Hoki Museum is Japan’s first museum dedicated to realist painting. It is located in Chiba City, about 70 kilometers from Tokyo. The Hoki Museum’s design defies gravity.
The Hoki Museum opened in November 2010. Masao Hoki founded it. He collected approximately 500 realistic paintings. Most works are by currently active Japanese artists. Many were drawn especially for the museum. It is an art museum that deepens communication with artists. It grows together with them.
Kazuhiko Yamanashi of Nikken Sekkei designed the Hoki Museum. Yamanashi had also studied oil painting at university. He understood the unique needs of a gallery building. These needs included light and climate control. The finished museum is a dramatic assemblage of curved corridors. These corridors are stacked against the green of Showa no Mori park. The design includes a 30-meter cantilever. It received commendation from the Architectural Institute of Japan in 2013.
Inside the Hoki Museum, the interior is specifically designed for realistic paintings. There are picture frame-free exhibition rooms. LED and halogen lighting is embedded in the ceiling. Rubber flooring prevents fatigue. It is a state-of-the-art museum. The entire space allows visitors to enjoy the paintings in a relaxed manner. The ceiling lighting is beautiful. It looks like the Milky Way. Photography is prohibited to help visitors concentrate on the artworks.
The Hoki Museum has three stories. Exploring the full collection takes one to two hours. The ground floor contains the entrance hall and museum shop. There is also an Italian restaurant called Hanau. Gallery 1 is a long, narrow space. Here, visitors first encounter the intricate work of Hyperrealist artists. It is also home to regularly changing special exhibitions.
One floor below are four more galleries and a cafe. Gallery 2 exhibits younger artists alongside Sosuke Morimoto’s work. Gallery 3 contains a large painting by Hiroshi Noda. The lowest floor contains the final four galleries. Several ceramic works are displayed here as a palate cleanser. Gallery 8 is devoted to “My Best Work.” The museum invites painters to produce representative work for this exhibition. Each painter’s work is displayed for three years. The museum sponsors the Hoki Museum Awards. It exhibits the winning work.
In 2019, Typhoon Hagibis badly damaged the museum. Eighty centimeters of water flooded the basement storage area. More than a hundred paintings were damaged. After eight months of renovation, the museum reopened in 2020. It celebrated its ten-year anniversary.
Hiroko Hoki said a single Hyperrealist painting can take months to complete. The Hoki Museum aims to provide a setting where visitors can take the time to consider the thought and feeling that goes into every canvas. So take your time here at the Hoki Museum. Let the hyperrealism capture your imagination and hold it for a while.