Director’s Message

A Unique Space to Explore the Cultural Legacy of Japan’s Imperial Family

Welcome to The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozokan. Our institution was established in November 1993 to care for works gifted to the nation by the Imperial Family in 1989.

The Museum’s missions are to preserve cultural treasures once owned by the Imperial Family for future generations, to continually pursue new research that deepens our understanding of the collection, and to create a space for visitors to explore every facet of the Imperial Family’s relationship with Japanese culture.

In 2023, thirty years after the Museum’s founding, our management was transferred from the Imperial Household Agency to the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage (NICH). Coinciding with that change, the Museum closed for renovations in 2019. We were thrilled to welcome a remarkable number of visitors during a partial reopening from November 2023 to May 2025 but are currently closed again to complete renovations. We eagerly await our full reopening in autumn 2026.

Building on NICH’s expertise in museum management, art preservation, and utilization of cultural properties, we are committed to creating an engaging experience for visitors from all over the world.

We look forward to welcoming you in our newly renovated galleries when the Museum reopens.

SHIMATANI Hiroyuki
Executive Director
The Museum of the Imperial Collections, Sannomaru Shozokan