Kanazawa Utatsuyama Kogei Kobo

This guide to Kanazawa Utatsuyama Kogei Kobo opens with eleven wooden boxes holding two thousand fragments of lacquer, iron fittings and dyed cloth, and asks what drove Maeda Tsunanori, ruler of the Kaga domain in the 1600s, to spend decades assembling them. You'll hear about his project Hyakko Hisho, built on the idea that examining the smallest parts reveals the whole, and how agents were sent scouring the country for maki-e lacquer and sword fittings to copy or collect. Step into the studios and watch potters, lacquer painters and metalworkers still chasing that same obsessive standard.