THE city of Fukuoka will start a full-scale renovation of its municipal art museum and the construction of a new city museum in the coming fiscal year to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the “Tenjin Big Bang,” a redevelopment project of the city centre.

The Fukuoka municipal government will make bolstering and publicising culture and art the core of its urban development policies for the next generation. Fukuoka plans to build an underground art museum in the Tenjin area and begin a large-scale renovation of the city museum, which houses a national treasure called the gold seal. The municipality is eyeing increasing the number of foreign tourists and enhancing the city’s appeal.

Using Louvre as reference

The new art museum will be a branch of the city’s modern and contemporary art museum, the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, and will use the underground parking lot built under Kego Park that has a total floor space of 11,000 square meters. The underground lot is scheduled to close in 2026. “We aim to open the new art museum within 10 years,” a senior city official said.

The Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, which opened in 1999, houses about 5,000 paintings and artifacts from 23 countries and regions. Among them is a rare contemporary Chinese work of art whose value soared from ¥2 million at the time of purchase to an estimated ¥1.6 billion.

However, the museum is housed within a building and has been limited in the number of works it can show to the public due to a lack of exhibition space. The new underground museum will have a 5-meter-high ceiling, and main exhibitions will move there to provide more opportunities for citizens to enjoy artworks.

According to city officials, a plan is in the works to build a gate and monument on the ground level to express the founding principle of the new museum, using as reference the Louvre Museum in France, which has a huge glass pyramid leading to an underground entrance.

“There will be a symbolic entrance in the plaza that leads down to the museum. This will create a tourist destination befitting a city that is leading the way in Asia,” said Fukuoka Mayor Soichiro Takashima, emphasising the significance of the project.

The city plans to allocate the related costs in its initial budget plan for the coming fiscal year and work out a concrete plan.

Integration of waterfront

The Fukuoka City Museum in Sawara Ward, which opened in 1990 in the Momochihama area of the seaside district, will be renovated and redeveloped through integration with the plaza on the south side of the site.

In addition to renovating areas including the gold seal exhibition, the museum will also be available for international conferences. The roughly 2,500-square-meter pond in the plaza will be reduced to a quarter of its current size to make way for restaurants and rest facilities. Some of the walls and flowerbeds surrounding the museum will be removed, and a 170-meter-long garden path will be built to lead visitors to Fukuoka Tower and the seaside area.

A garden area of about 1,800 square meters will also be created so visitors can enjoy seasonal flowers. The renovation work for the museum will start after the completion of the plaza in 2026, and it is scheduled to reopen in March 2029. The city estimated the total project cost at about ¥16 billion as of fiscal 2023 and has begun the process of selecting a business operator.

“We want to hold events in the plaza and hope to increase the synergy effect of its integration with the surrounding tourist attractions to attract visitors,” a city official said.

City eyes post-policy measures

The city initiated the Tenjin Big Bang project in 2015 to encourage the rebuilding of aging buildings by drastically easing the floor-area ratio and other regulations.

According to the city, 58 buildings had been completed as of the end of March 2024, and hotels such as the Ritz-Carlton Fukuoka opened one after another.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2025