The national Museum in Kyoto is one of the three most famous museums in Japan, built in the Meiji period in the late nineteenth century. Together with the Museum in Kyoto also at this time, museums were built, which now bear the names of the Tokyo national Museum and the Nara National Museum. Previously they were called the Imperial.

The main hall of the Museum was designed by the architect Tokuma Katayama, a famous supporter of the Western trends in art. Therefore, the building was built of red brick in the style of French Renaissance. Today it hosts various exhibitions. The construction of this part of the Museum was completed in 1895. In the second half of the XX century the Main building of the exhibition hall, gate, building is the ticket office and a fence around the whole complex have been declared important cultural properties of Japan.

Permanent exhibitions housed in the new Museum building, which was built in 1966. The exhibits collected in three areas: fine arts (painting, sculpture, calligraphy, crafts (ceramics, lacquer, textiles, metal products, including domestic and religious purposes, weapons and armor), archaeological finds.

Exhibits from the collection of the Kyoto National Museum are not only Japanese art, but the art of other Asian countries. The collection of the Museum there are more than 12 thousand exhibits, half of which are on public display. In addition, 230 items of Museum collections have the status of national treasures of Japan. Many of the items formerly found in ancient temples, Imperial palaces or private collections. The Museum also assembled an extensive archive of photographs, numbering more than two hundred thousand units. The size of the Museum complex – 50 thousand sq. m.