THE ART
The Art of Hakone: Museums in the Mountains
Few day trips from Tokyo hide this much art. Hakone holds a hillside of open-air sculpture, an Impressionist forest and a whole hall of Venetian glass.
Check dates and availability ↗Why a volcano became a gallery
It is genuinely odd, when you think about it, that a small hot-spring town inside an active volcano should hold one of the densest concentrations of art museums in Japan. The reason is a happy accident of geography and postwar prosperity: Hakone was already a resort within easy reach of Tokyo, its hillsides were green and dramatic, and from the late 1960s onward a series of private collectors and companies chose to plant museums here rather than in the crowded capital. The result is that you can spend a Hakone day looking at Henry Moore, Monet and Venetian glass, all set against mountains and forest rather than white city walls. The art here is inseparable from its setting — outdoors, half-buried in woodland, framed by the caldera — which is precisely the appeal, and why the collections feel different from their equivalents in a downtown gallery.
The Hakone Open-Air Museum
The one everyone starts with, and rightly. Opened in 1969 as Japan's first open-air museum, it spreads around 120 sculptures across some 70,000 square metres of hillside — Henry Moore, Constantin Brâncuși, Barbara Hepworth, Tarō Okamoto and others, drawn from a wider collection of more than 1,000 works. Sculpture outdoors changes with the light, the weather and the season in a way it never does in a gallery, and children can run between the pieces, which makes it an unusually easy museum to bring a family to. The Picasso Pavilion holds over 300 Picasso works, among them 188 ceramics acquired from the artist's daughter Maya. There is even a warm foot-bath fed by the hot springs to rest at. It sits one railway stop before Gōra on the Tozan line, so it folds neatly into the loop. Allow a couple of hours to do it justice.
The Pola Museum of Art
If the Open-Air Museum is Hakone's extrovert, the Pola Museum is its quiet counterpart. Opened in 2002 in the forest near Sengokuhara, it was built deliberately low and largely below the treeline so as not to disturb the surrounding woodland — you descend into it, and much of the light is borrowed and soft. The collection, assembled over decades by the founder of the Pola cosmetics company, is strongest in French Impressionism and the School of Paris: Monet, Renoir and their contemporaries, alongside Japanese and modern Western works. After the galleries, a walking path loops out through the natural forest with sculpture set among the trees. It is a slower, more contemplative stop than the Open-Air Museum, and the building itself — glass and light, sunk into the hillside — is as much the experience as the paintings. A shuttle bus connects it to the loop.
The Hakone Venetian Glass Museum
Officially the Hakone Garasu no Mori, the "glass forest," this is the most purely pretty of Hakone's museums and the one that most delights on a clear day. Devoted to Venetian glass, it gathers goblets, chandeliers, mirrors and figures from Venice's centuries-long glassmaking tradition in Murano, displayed in a mock-Italianate setting of gardens, a canal and a small bridge near Sengokuhara. The signature sight is outdoors: arches and trees strung with crystal-glass drops that catch the sun and, in the right light, scatter it everywhere. There is usually a working demonstration of glassblowing, a café and a shop selling contemporary Venetian pieces. It is unashamedly a crowd-pleaser rather than a serious art-historical survey, and it is all the more enjoyable for knowing that about itself — a genuine treat with children, and a good foil to the heavier collections nearby.
And several more
Hakone's museum list runs deeper than the famous three. The Lalique Museum, also near Sengokuhara, is devoted to the French Art Nouveau and Art Deco glass and jewellery of René Lalique, and even displays a restored Orient Express carriage he decorated, where you can take tea. The Okada Museum, near Kowakudani, is a large private collection of East Asian art with a striking outdoor mural and its own hot-spring foot-bath. The Narukawa Art Museum at Moto-Hakone specialises in modern Japanese-style painting and is worth it as much for its panoramic window over Lake Ashi toward Fuji as for the works inside. You could not see them all in a day and should not try — but between them they mean a rained-off, Fuji-less Hakone visit still has plenty to reward the trip.
Planning a museum day
The museums are scattered across the caldera, which is the one thing to plan around. Broadly, the Open-Air Museum sits on the Tozan railway line between Miyanoshita and Gōra, while the Pola, Venetian Glass and Lalique museums cluster out toward Sengokuhara and are reached by bus or car rather than the loop's rails. Trying to combine the loop's transport sequence with several museums in one day is where itineraries fall apart, because the museums pull you off the ring. Pick two, not five. If you are riding the loop, the Open-Air Museum is the natural stop; if you have a car or are basing yourself in Sengokuhara, pair the Pola with the Venetian Glass or Lalique. Entry fees apply at each and are not covered by transport passes or included in tour prices, so check current admission before you go.
Hakone's main art museums at a glance
| Museum | Focus | Setting |
|---|---|---|
| Hakone Open-Air Museum | Modern sculpture; Picasso Pavilion | Hillside, on the Tozan railway near Gōra |
| Pola Museum of Art | French Impressionism, School of Paris | Sunk into forest near Sengokuhara |
| Hakone Venetian Glass Museum | Venetian and Murano glass | Italianate garden near Sengokuhara |
| Lalique Museum | René Lalique glass and jewellery | Sengokuhara; Orient Express tea car |
| Narukawa Art Museum | Modern Japanese-style painting | Moto-Hakone, overlooking Lake Ashi |