The Museum of Oriental Ceramics, Osaka

This guide to the Museum of Oriental Ceramics in Osaka opens with the 1977 collapse of the trading house Ataka and Company, and one executive's quiet obsession: nearly a thousand Chinese and Korean ceramic pieces assembled by Eiichi Ataka since 1951. When the bankruptcy threatened to scatter the collection to auction houses worldwide, Sumitomo Bank stepped in as trustee. You'll hear how twenty-one companies pooled funds in 1980 to buy the collection whole and hand it to the city, two years before this museum opened to house it. Look up at the skylights feeding daylight down through the display cases as you walk the galleries.