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Kurashiki is a city in Okayama Prefecture in western Japan, famous for the Bikan Historical Quarter, where white-walled merchant storehouses line a willow-fringed canal, and for the Ohara Museum of Art, the first museum of Western art in Japan. It lies on the Inland Sea coast, a short train ride west of Okayama.
In 1642 the shogunate took the town under direct rule and set up a magistrate's office here, and Kurashiki grew rich as a market for rice and cotton. Later the Kurabo spinning company and the Ohara family shaped the town, leaving red-brick mills and a superb art collection.
Today visitors ride small boats along the Kurashiki River, climb to Achi Shrine above the rooftops and stay in the ivy-covered old mill of Ivy Square. On the coast, the Kojima district is known as the home of Japanese denim, and Mount Washu looks out over the islands of the Inland Sea and the Great Seto Bridge.
The Kurashiki Bikan Historical Quarter is the preserved old merchant district of Kurashiki, where white-walled storehouses with black tiles line a canal shaded by willows. It grew around the shogunate's magistrate office from 1642 and has been a protected historic district since 1979.
The Ohara Museum of Art in Kurashiki opened in 1930 as the first museum of Western art in Japan, founded by the businessman Ohara Magosaburo with works bought by the painter Kojima Torajiro. Its Greek-style facade hides treasures such as El Greco's Annunciation and Monet's water lilies.
Kurashiki Ivy Square is a hotel and cultural complex in Kurashiki, set in the red-brick spinning mill that the Kurabo company built in 1889 on the site of the old magistrate's office. Converted in 1973, its walls are cloaked in ivy that was first planted to keep the factory cool.
Ohashi House is a historic merchant residence in Kurashiki, built by the Ohashi family, one of the wealthy households of the old town, and now a nationally designated important cultural property. Its white walls, tiled roofs and Kurashiki lattice windows are typical of the town.
Achi Shrine stands on Tsurugata hill above the old quarter of Kurashiki and is the guardian shrine of the town. Its ancient stone circles and rock garden face a famous wisteria said to be the largest and oldest in Japan, and a wisteria festival is held every year from 3 to 5 May.
The Kurashiki River is the canal at the heart of the old quarter of Kurashiki, used by boats carrying goods to and from the sea until the 1950s. Today willows line its stone banks, and small traditional boats take visitors along the water past the white-walled storehouses of the Bikan district.
The Kurashiki City Art Museum is housed in the former city hall of Kurashiki, a concrete building designed by Kenzo Tange and completed in 1960. It opened as a museum in 1983, built around 489 works donated by the Japanese-style painter Ikeda Yoson, and is a registered cultural property.
The Kurashiki Museum of Folkcraft stands in the Bikan Historical Quarter of Kurashiki, in rice storehouses from the late Edo period with white walls and black tiles. Opened in 1948 as the second folk craft museum in Japan, it holds about 15,000 everyday crafts from Japan and around the world.
Mount Washu is a 133-metre hill at the southern tip of the Kojima Peninsula in Kurashiki, part of the Setonaikai National Park and a national place of scenic beauty. Its summit lookout gives sweeping views of the Great Seto Bridge and the many small islands of the Inland Sea.
The Great Seto Bridge links Kurashiki on Honshu with Sakaide on Shikoku, a chain of ten bridges across five islands that opened in 1988. Carrying both road and rail over 13.1 kilometres, it is the longest double-deck road and rail bridge system in the world, best seen from Mount Washu.
Yugasan Rendaiji is a temple on Mount Yuga in the Kojima district of Kurashiki, a sacred mountain said to have been founded by the monk Gyoki in 733. Pilgrims traditionally visited it together with Konpira across the sea, and its wooded grounds lie within the national park.
Entsu-ji is a Soto Zen temple on a hill above the old port of Tamashima in Kurashiki, where the monk and poet Ryokan trained for about twelve years in the late 18th century. Its grounds, with a statue of Ryokan playing with children, are a prefectural historic site and park.
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