Cover Among the most striking museums in Asia, Museum SAN in Wonju unites Tadao Ando’s architecture with water, stone and forest. (Photo: Museum SAN / Instagram)
Among the most striking museums in Asia, Museum SAN in Wonju unites Tadao Ando’s architecture with water, stone and forest. (Photo: Museum SAN / Instagram)
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From Naoshima’s art islands to Hong Kong’s eco-focused spaces, museums in Asia merge culture and nature
Set against landscapes that feel organic and inviting, museums in Asia are rethinking how art and science connect with nature. Many now merge architecture with ecology, creating spaces that move beyond the conventional gallery. Some are built underground to preserve their surroundings, others spread through forests or stand beside water, using the environment as part of the experience. These museums in Asia highlight how setting shapes meaning, reminding visitors that context can be as engaging as the collections themselves.
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1. Museum SAN – Wonju, South Korea
Museum SAN (Space Art Nature) in Wonju, South Korea, was designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando and opened in 2013. The complex sits on a mountain ridge and is organised into separate zones, including a welcome centre, a main gallery, a paper gallery and an outdoor sculpture garden. Visitors move through courtyards of flowers and stone, a meditation hall and a water garden framed by geometric walls. Built with locally sourced honey-coloured stone, the museum is intended to harmonise with its alpine setting, presenting nature as an integral element of the visitor experience.
2. Chichu Art Museum – Naoshima, Japan
Located on Naoshima—one of the famed art islands of the Seto Inland Sea—Chichu Art Museum is largely subterranean, preserving the island’s serenity while framing works by Monet, James Turrell and others. Natural light pours in through skylights, and the garden evokes Monet’s Giverny through carefully arranged flora. It’s a rare example among museums in Asia where the surroundings and the art are in tacit conversation.
3. Hakone Open-Air Museum – Kanagawa, Japan
The Hakone Open-Air Museum in Kanagawa, which opened in 1969 as Japan’s first outdoor museum, spans more than 70,000 square metres of parkland. The site presents over a thousand works in rotation, with around 120 sculptures displayed permanently across its lawns and wooded areas. Artists represented include Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore and Niki de Saint Phalle. The museum also houses the Picasso Pavilion, which contains over 300 works by the Spanish artist. Outdoor installations are complemented by a hot-spring foot bath, a feature that links the museum to Hakone’s long history as an onsen destination.
4. Sapporo Art Park Sculpture Garden – Sapporo, Japan
Here, 64 artists contributed 74 sculptures that reside deep within a forested 40-hectare park near Sapporo. The works engage directly with the wild around them: sails that catch wind, water gates that frame the landscape, sundials that ask you to experience time. It’s a place where walking through nature is itself part of the exhibit.
5. National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts – Taichung, Taiwan
The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung, which opened in 1988, is the largest art museum in Taiwan dedicated to modern and contemporary works. The 102,000-square-metre complex includes indoor galleries as well as a landscaped outdoor sculpture park that extends into the surrounding urban greenery. Its central courtyard functions as a public gathering space, while features such as the stone tablet calligraphy installation highlight Taiwan’s cultural heritage in an open-air setting. By integrating architecture with gardens and walkways, the museum is designed to serve both as an exhibition space and a civic landmark.
6. Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum – Fukui, Japan
Set within Dinosaur Valley, close to active excavation sites and a designated Geopark, this natural history museum lies amid forest and hillside. Its locale isn’t ornamental. Instead, the land and its relics here are part of the museum’s mission—to situate science within geology rather than abstraction.
7. Shanghai Natural History Museum – Shanghai, China
Located in the Jing’an Sculpture Park, the Shanghai Natural History Museum is a striking example of bioclimatic design. Its nautilus-shaped structure, designed by Perkins & Will, features a central sunken pond and a green roof, promoting evaporative cooling and reducing energy consumption. The building’s glass walls, inspired by plant cell structures, allow natural light to permeate the galleries, creating a seamless connection between the exhibits and the natural world.
8. UCCA Dune Art Museum – Bohai Bay, China
Situated in the Beidaihe District along China’s Bohai Bay, the UCCA Dune Art Museum is a remarkable example of architecture blending with its natural setting. Designed by Open Architecture, the museum comprises a series of subterranean galleries carved into the dunes, preserving the site’s natural topography. This design allows visitors to experience art within a landscape that remains largely untouched, highlighting the harmonious coexistence of culture and nature.
9. Zaishui Art Museum – Shandong Province, China
Designed by Junya Ishigami + Associates and completed in late 2023, the Zaishui Art Museum spans approximately 20,000 m² and stretches almost one kilometre across an artificial lake at the entrance to a new development zone in Rizhao, Shandong Province. Its elongated, low-profile form gives the impression of floating on water—a “gentle giant” that intentionally dissolves the line between landscape and structure. In winter, even when the lake surface freezes, water beneath the ice continues to seep through the lower glass gaps, keeping the interior connected with the natural rhythm of the seasons.
This selection of museums in Asia reflects how the presentation of art can be enhanced by environment, climate and architecture. From buried architecture on a quiet art island to the forest-draped galleries of Hokkaido, these institutions demonstrate how museums in Asia can inhabit nature with integrity. They are not simply sites to visit but environments to experience, each offering a distinct, thoughtful dialogue between art, artefact and ecosystem.
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Chonx Tibajia is a senior editor at Tatler Asia’s T-Labs team, where she writes widely on lifestyle subjects including beauty, style, entertainment and travel. She has a long career in journalism, including roles as a columnist at The Philippine Star, and is the founder of the creative platform Pineappleversed. Beyond Tatler, her bylines appear in regional lifestyle and business publications, showcasing a broad portfolio that spans beauty trends, travel guides and culture pieces.
