Overview
What Kiyose City lacks in museums and galleries, it more than makes up for it with innovation and ingenuity. Simple though it may be, the city's sole official museum space makes good use of the modern world to help provide access to and promote the area's local history and heritage. Here is an introduction to Kiyose City Local History Museum and how to reach it.
Kiyose City Local History Museum
If local cities find it a challenge to bring visitors to their museum, then the next best option may be to bring the museum to the visitor. With this in mind, the Kiyose City Folk Museum showed some good foresight when it opened its doors in the mid-1980s. Fully intending to make use of interactive learning and the internet, the museum does a fantastic job of exploiting the resources that it does have.
The award-winning building museum has plenty of workshops for visitors to earn their hands-on experiences. The museum also features a fairly comprehensive online presence. Its official website provides links to graphics and online videos with plenty of information (in Japanese). Non-Japanese readers can always make use of online translators though the photos do offer some good close ups of the items on display with plenty of detail.
As for what's on display, the permanent exhibition has a decent focus on local technologies, both feudal and 20th century while of special appeal are the regular exhibitions that held throughout the year. Recent ones have included ukiyo-e wood block prints and modern rail exhibitions. Of particular importance are the hundreds of uchiori hand-weaved items of clothing. These have been designated as an Important Tangible Folk-Cultural Property of the city.
Closed Mondays, the museum is open every other day from 9-5pm. Admission is free.
A 10-minute walk from the North Exit of Kiyose Station on the Seibu-Ikebukuro Line.
