Autumn 2025. We – Sam and Danny, Michel and Wille, and Timothy – are travelling to Japan for a quite classic tour of the Land of the Rising Sun. We are flying separately as we used miles. On the planning: Tokyo, Kanazawa, Shirakawa, Osaka, and Expo 2025, Hiroshima, Himeji, Miyajima, Kyoto, Nara, Nagoya, Hakone, and back to Tokyo. Three weeks plus some extra days.
Prior to the group trip, I – Timothy – am solo in Tokyo. Using artificial intelligence, I concocted a busy four days featuring Ito on the Izu Peninsula and Sawara, also known as Little Edo. I also end this Journey Across Japan with a solo spell in Minato, near Taito and Tamachi Station.
On the day Danny and Sam arrived (in the evening), I decided to do one more remote excursion: the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum. The Bokrijk (Limburg) or Skansen (Stockholm) of Tokyo.
The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum (江戸東京たてもの園, Edo Tōkyō Tatemono En) is a remarkable open-air museum located in Koganei Park, on Tokyo’s western outskirts. Established in 1993 as a branch of the Edo-Tokyo Museum, it preserves Tokyo’s architectural heritage by relocating and reconstructing significant buildings that could not be maintained on their original sites. Operated by the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture, the museum spans more than seven hectares and provides a vivid, walkable record of urban and domestic life from the Edo period through to the mid-Shōwa era.
More than 30 restored structures are displayed across the grounds, ranging from the former homes of politicians, architects, and farmers to traditional businesses such as an izakaya (pub), sentō (public bathhouse), and ryokan (inn). Together, these create an immersive streetscape where visitors can step inside buildings and experience how Tokyoites once lived, worked, and socialised.
The museum’s roots stretch back to 1934, when a local history exhibition opened in Arisugawa-no-miya Memorial Park. After several relocations and name changes, the current site in Koganei Park was chosen to allow for full-scale preservation in an open-air setting.
The museum is divided into three main zones. The West Zone features farmhouses from Musashino and Setagaya, a 1930s Art Deco-style photo studio from Tokiwadai, and the House of Kunio Maekawa, a 1942 modernist residence by one of Japan’s pioneering architects.
The Central Zone focuses on distinguished buildings, such as the House of Takahashi Korekiyo, home of the Meiji-era statesman, and the Former Jishōin Mausoleum, dating from 1652.
The East Zone recreates the downtown atmosphere of early twentieth-century Tokyo, complete with a nostalgic public bathhouse (Kodakara-yu), a soy sauce shop, and an izakaya from the 1850s.
In addition to its architectural exhibits, the museum displays outdoor artefacts including a Toei tram car from 1962, an Isuzu bonnet bus from 1968, and an ornamental lamp once installed on the Nijūbashi Bridge at the Imperial Palace. Notably, Studio Ghibli animator Hayao Miyazaki drew inspiration from the museum’s historic streetscapes during the creation of ‘Spirited Away‘, capturing the atmosphere of the Shōwa-era city life represented here.
Today, the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum offers one of the most engaging ways to explore Tokyo’s past — a place where the evolution of Japan’s capital unfolds not in glass cases, but through full-sized, walk-in architecture set among trees, paths, and open skies.
A visit
You can take hours to visit if you want. You can enter the many houses, but be prepared to each time take off your shoes. Very normal in Japan.
Umbrellas are provided if it rains or the sun works too hard.
We tend to see Japan and in particular Tokyo as this hypermodern place, but it isn’t. The Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum shows this.
So if you have to choose between the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum or Sawara, pick the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum.
2025 Journey Across Japan
- Japan’s Superconducting Maglev train breaks world speed record at 603 km/h.
- Japan’s maglev bullet train delayed to 2035 or later as costs rise to ¥11 trillion.
- QUESTION | Should you be stressed about travelling to Japan, and fear of missing out?.
- Brussels Airport to Milan Malpensa with Brussels Airlines, operated by Air Baltic, ft. the 2025 check-in and boarding software hack.
- REVIEW | Sala Montale Exclusive Lounge and Sala Gae Aulentin Premium Lounge at Milan Malpensa Airport, extra Schengen.
- REVIEW | All Nippon Airways (ANA), Business Class, Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner to Tokyo.
- REVIEW | Toei Animation Museum in Nerima, Tokyo.
- JAPAN | Tokyo Station, its Character Street and Pokémon Store.
- REVIEW | Onyado Nono Asakusa Hotel in Tokyo.
- TOKYO | Asakusa ft. Sensō-ji Temple.
- JAPAN | The Odoriko train from Tokyo to Ito on Izu Peninsula.
- PHOTOS & REVIEW | The Izu Teddy Bear Museum in Izu-Kōgen.
- JAPAN | A visit to Ito on Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture.
- REVIEW | Japan’s Saphir Odoriko in Premium Green Car from Ito on Izu Peninsula to Tokyo Station.
- GAY TOKYO | 24 Kaikan in Asakusa (+ Ueno and Shinjuku).
- TOKYO | Sawara in Chiba Prefecture, ‘Little Edo’ beyond Narita.
- TOKYO | Omotesandō in Shibuya – AEON Shinonome – Uniqlo – Muji.