Sagawa Art Museum

The Sagawa Art Museum stands on reclaimed land near the Moriyama shore of Lake Biwa, its low, wide-eaved pavilions set amid a broad expanse of shallow water that mirrors the sky. Founded by the Sagawa Express company, it centres on three artists: the sculptor Churyo Sato, the Nihonga painter Ikuo Hirayama, known for his Silk Road subjects, and the fifteenth-generation Raku potter Kichizaemon, whose tea-bowl gallery lies partly below the waterline in a specially designed underground space. The architecture, the reflecting pools and the changing light make the building itself as much a draw as the collections, and a tea room and restaurant look out over the water.