Musée Ando à Karuizawa is the first museum in the world that is solely dedicated to the works of Japanese-French painter Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita (1886-1968). Located in the town of Karuizawa, it also houses a salon (a concert and lecture hall with a capacity of 87 people) and a café.

The building is laid out around a courtyard, and like a stroke of a pen, the brick-clad exterior wall is drawn into the interior in the middle of the west facade, seamlessly flowing out again to form the outer walls of the courtyard. The gaps between the brick walls are filled with curtain walls, creating a luminous interior space. The two contrasting materials - brick and glass - create two types of interior space; a "closed space" enclosed by the brick walls and an "open space″ defined by the curtain walls.

The main function of the museum, such as the exhibition rooms and storage rooms, are contained within the "closed space″ and are isolated from the outside to maintain the indoor environment optimal for the artworks. On the other hand, the entrance hall, salon, observation lounge, attic exhibition room, and café are located in the ″open space″ so that visitors can enjoy the natural beauty of Karuizawa.

Visitors enter the entrance hall walking under a floating volume covered with bricks. The entrance to the exhibition rooms is reached through a foyer with a 10-meter-high ceiling, visually integrated with the courtyard through a curtain wall. Each of the exhibition rooms has a different wall color, ceiling shape, and lighting technique depending on the work on display. Visitors will walk around the courtyard, coming and going between the ″closed space″ where they can immerse themselves in the world of Foujita′s works and the ″open space″ where they can feel the nature of Karuizawa.

The works of Foujita in the museum′s collection were amassed over a period of 20 years by Yasushi and Megumi Ando and had long been displayed in their homes. The museum is the fruition of the couple′s wish to invite visitors to an intimate homelike place, for them to enjoy Foujita′s adorable paintings of cats, young girls, and the Virgin and Child in order to find solace and peace of mind.

AWARDS
IEIJ (The Illuminating Engineering Institute of Japan)
Tokai Branch Director's Award for Excellent Lighting Facility 2024
JIA (The Japan Institute of Architects)
Japan Architecture of the Year 2024