The Japan Folk Crafts Museum, Tokyo
I got off at Shibuya and started walking.
A few turns away from the crossing, the streets grew narrow and still.
Small shops, houses with low fences, and the sound of a broom sweeping.
It felt natural to slow down.
Not far from there, through a quiet residential area,
stood the Japan Folk Crafts Museum —
a simple, stone-and-wood building that looked almost closed from the outside.
Inside, though, it felt spacious in an unexpected way.
The museum was founded in 1936 by Soetsu Yanagi,
who believed beauty lives in things made to be used.
He collected bowls, fabrics, and tools crafted by people
whose names were never written anywhere.
Among them were many from Korea —
pottery and wooden vessels from the Joseon period,
objects he admired for their calm and unstudied form.
You take off your shoes, wear slippers,
and walk through rooms filled with things that once belonged to someone’s life.
There are no long captions,
no explanations about what is important.
The museum seems to ask you to look,
and that’s all.
This way of seeing follows Soetsu Yanagi’s belief —
that beauty should not depend on knowledge,
but be met with the freedom of the eye and the mind.
It reflects the very spirit of mingei:
objects created by unknown craftsmen,
once considered too ordinary to be called art.
Over time, those same works have gained immense value,
though that was never their intention.
Folk crafts are often closer to design than to art.
They were made to solve small problems —
to make daily life a bit easier,
a bit more thoughtful.
When something useful is also made with care,
it eventually becomes beautiful.
Even in Tokyo today,
you can see that same idea everywhere —
in a soba shop bowl,
a wooden tray at a small diner.
It’s not about rarity or price,
but how naturally a thing becomes part of your day.
Craft, I think, should begin with use,
not with luxury.
When something is used and shared,
it finds its own worth.
After coming back home,
I decided to keep a piece by a Korean artist.
Not as a collection,
but as a reminder to keep learning —
to keep seeing things for what they are.
Words by Taeyoung Song.
Photography by Hyojin Jeong.