Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Traditional Arts and Crafts

This guide to the Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Traditional Arts and Crafts in Kanazawa follows thirty-six trades, lacquer sanders, gold-leaf pounders, silk dyers, who once supplied the Maeda lords' valley and never called themselves artists. It traces the building's own second career, from Taniguchi Yoshiro's 1959 fine-art museum to its 1984 turn toward craft once painting moved out. You'll see how a Kutani porcelain case lays bare every stage a potter's hands actually touch, from throwing to firing, in a room built to hide exactly that process.