If you build it, they will come

Sometimes I walk past a house or a building and wonder what is inside.  What does it look like?  How is it laid out?  My curious mind wants to know.  The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum is perfect for curious minds like mine. 

The entrance is in the middle of Koganei Park.  For an inexpensive rate of ¥400, you can wander up and down the streets of old Edo, farm country, and war-time Japan.  The purpose of the museum is to relocate, reconstruct, preserve, and exhibit historical buildings from Tokyo.  The best part for me is that visitors get to wander through all of the buildings to see how they are designed.

Guests need to wear comfortable shoes because there is a lot of walking around the property.  But they also must remove their shoes when entering almost every building.  In the states we always had a no shoe in the house policy, and some people really struggled with this.  I can't imagine taking people who dislike removing shoes to this museum.   

My son and I started on the restored houses from 1910 to 1952.  There was a beautiful house (House of Koide) that combined Dutch and traditional Japanese design.  I found this house so comfortable.  I could easily live in this house.  The entrance epitomized this combined approach from the carved wooden posts and a circle "window."  I loved the wooden bathtub.  There was a little door right next to the tub that I don't know why it was there. 

While I loved the House of Koide, I loved the House of Kunio Mayekawa.  The modern architecture style house was built during World War 2.  It had clean lines, tons of windows and was so airy and light.  The house was super narrow, but it felt like it opened up to the world.  It was almost as if it was the beautiful cocoon that made you feel so safe and then the windows and doors opened to this amazing world.

There was also a really neat photo studio that took photos only using natural light.  The north facing wall and 1/3 of its ceiling was made of windows, while the southern facing roof and wall was covered with a bright white paint to make the lighting just right for portraits.

My son was fascinated with the various farm houses.  He wanted to go inside each one.  The open fire pit in the middle of the floor was so interesting for him.  He pretended to warm his hands and cook a quick meal.

I was excited to head over to the Edo street of restored buildings.  From the soy sauce shop to the tailor's workshop, the buildings were fascinating.  My favorites were the public bathhouse from 1929 and the oil-paper umbrella shop from 1926.  It was immersive history.  We weren't able to explore the Edo era buildings as much as the war-time houses.  Instead we entered the front and peered into the buildings.

Some of the Edo buildings had impressive staircases.  The house my husband grew up in had one of these super steep staircases that are almost a ladder.  You can still see them in many older Japanese homes.

My son and I had a great time at this museum.  We were there for almost 2 hours.  We could have stayed longer, but we were both tired and 2 hours at any museum is long enough.