Hida Takayama Museum of Art Audio Guide

Hida Takayama Museum of Art: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Hida Takayama Museum of Art

   Welcome to the Hida Takayama Museum of Art, known in Japanese as 飛騨高山美術館, a private art museum in Takayama, in Gifu Prefecture. Most visitors come to this mountain city for its old wooden streets and its festival. Here the surprise is different: a collection of glass and furniture gathered from around the world, tucked into the Hida highlands. This guide keeps to what is well established about the museum: what it collects, the artists who anchor its reputation, and the story of a very unusual shuttle bus. Think of it as an orientation rather than a room-by-room tour, so you can arrive curious and let the objects do the rest. One quick point to keep your bearings: this is an art museum devoted to glass and furniture. It is not the free town museum of history and crafts in the old quarter, which is a different place with a different story. Settle in, and let's start with the glass.

2. 02

   Hida Takayama Museum of Art: A World of Glass and Furniture

   The heart of the Hida Takayama Museum of Art is glass craft and furniture. The glass collection reaches across centuries, from the sixteenth to the twentieth, and across the globe. Instead of focusing on one country or one workshop, it lets you follow glassmaking as a long, international conversation. Alongside the glass sits furniture, and that pairing says something about the museum's outlook. A glass vase and a carved cabinet are both made objects, shaped by hand and by fashion. Seeing them together reminds you that the great decorative artists of the age often worked across materials, treating a room, and everything in it, as a work of art. It is also worth remembering that this is a private museum. Its character comes from the vision of a collector's eye rather than a civic mandate, which is why the selection feels focused and personal.

3. 03

   Hida Takayama Museum of Art: Gallé, Lalique and Art Nouveau

   Two names carry much of the museum's reputation: Émile Gallé and René Lalique. Their work is scattered through the galleries, and the display leans into drama. In dimly lit spaces, masterpieces seem to float out of the darkness, glowing as if lit from within. Among the best known is Gallé's work called Roses of France. Gallé was a leading figure of Art Nouveau, the style that took its curves, petals and tendrils straight from nature and poured them into glass and furniture. Lalique, who worked in the same spirit of nature-inspired design, helped carry glass design into a new era. The museum's holdings of Art Nouveau and Art Deco make a natural pairing with the glass: delicate, sensual forms on one side, and on the other, a later taste for sleeker lines. As you walk, notice how the low light changes the way colored glass behaves. A piece can look quiet and smoky from one angle and suddenly luminous from another.

4. 04

   Hida Takayama Museum of Art: The Double-Decker London Bus

   Here is a story that sounds invented but is not. From 2001 until around 2015, every year from April to October, the museum ran a shuttle bus that was a classic London double-decker, built in 1967. Imagine a red British bus rolling through a Japanese mountain town. The bus collected passengers at Takayama Station. Riders could use it by buying an advance admission ticket or by purchasing their entry ticket on board. On the way to the museum it passed through the old townscape and by the historic government house, the Jinya, so the ride doubled as a little sightseeing loop. When the shuttle service ended, the bus did not disappear. It was put on static display at the museum entrance, where it became a landmark in its own right. If you spot a vintage double-decker near the front, you will know exactly where it came from.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Before you move on, take one more slow look at the glass. Try choosing a single piece and circling it, watching how its color and surface change as your angle shifts. That small game is how Gallé and Lalique wanted their work to be seen: not at a glance, but over time. Then carry the thread back out into Takayama. You have just seen how a mountain city can hold a world collection of glass and furniture. The old town's craft traditions are a short journey away, and comparing the two, local woodwork and global glass, may leave you with new questions about what makes a beautiful object. Keep wondering about the stories behind what you saw, from the roses in glass to a red London bus parked in the Hida highlands.