Last day today#Design & architecture
2026 Kyoto Modern Architecture Festival
Japanese original:
2026年京都モダン建築祭
About 150 modern and historic buildings across Kyoto take part, 61 of them open to passport holders on 31 October–1 November and 7–8 November, with some 120 guided tours besides. The festival began in 2022; for its fifth year it recreates a tea gathering held in Higashiyama about a century ago, alongside tours, talks and art.
1 / 4 Image: Kyoto Modern Architecture Festival (across Kyoto)
- Dates
- Oct 31 – Nov 8, 2026
- Address
- 京都府京都市（全市各地）Open in Google Maps
- Admission
- Full-period pass ¥5,000Original: 通期パス 5,000円
Visit planning
The calendar entry covers the whole run of the exhibition. Please check opening hours and closing days before your visit.
Entry notes
Entry to the buildings needs a festival passport; there are no one-day tickets. The first part (Oct 31 and Nov 1) and the second part (Nov 7 and 8) each have a 2-day passport at ¥3,000 (regular price), the 4-day full passport is ¥5,000, and the 4-day U29 passport for those born on or after January 1, 1996 is ¥2,000. Opening days and hours differ by building, so even the full passport does not open every building on all four days. The second part runs 10:00–17:00, with some evening openings.
- Entry to the buildings needs a festival passport; there are no one-day tickets. The first part (Oct 31 and Nov 1) and the second part (Nov 7 and 8) each have a 2-day passport at ¥3,000 (regular price), the 4-day full passport is ¥5,000, and the 4-day U29 passport for those born on or after January 1, 1996 is ¥2,000. Opening days and hours differ by building, so even the full passport does not open every building on all four days. The second part runs 10:00–17:00, with some evening openings. (Source: 京都モダン建築祭：建築祭パスポートについて, 2026)
- Some buildings need an online numbered ticket (a timed ticket) to get in: Funaoka Onsen, the Annex of the Institute for Research in Humanities at Kyoto University, Hekizansō (Tanigawa residences), Shōunsō (Yoshimura house), Gion-ishi and TIME’S; at the Shimadzu Foundation Memorial Hall only the special-opening section needs one. They cannot be booked in advance: they go on sale on the web at ArtSticker from 7:00 a.m. on the day each building opens, first come first served until each slot is full, and none are issued on site. The ticket does not replace the passport, which every member of the party must show; one person can apply for the whole party, but everyone must enter together. (Source: 京都モダン建築祭：オンライン整理券について, 2026)
From the organizer's announcements and press reports. Arrangements can change; please check the official site before your visit.
On now and coming up
Recently opened · Major shows beyond Tokyo
Credits
- Organized by
- Kyoto Modern Architecture Festival Executive Committee
- Co-organized by
- Kyoto City
- In cooperation with
- teket Inc., Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores Co., Ltd., Flat Field Technologies 股份有限公司, Meiji Marble Co., Ltd.
Knowledge cards
Modern architecture近代建築（モダニズム建築）A 20th-century current in architecture that set aside historical styles and ornament and took function as its starting point, using industrial materials such as glass, steel, and reinforced concrete.Read moreClose
01About
From the late nineteenth century, new materials and engineering such as steel frames, glass, and reinforced concrete challenged historical styles and made taller, lighter, more open buildings possible. Modern architecture took these industrial materials as its starting point: form follows function, and ornament is rejected. A 1932 show at New York's Museum of Modern Art, the first of its kind, gave the movement the name International Style, coined for its catalogue by a historian and an architect; Tate describes the look as rectilinear, undecorated, asymmetrical, and white. In Germany, a large group of these architects came out of the Bauhaus, the school Walter Gropius founded in Weimar in 1919. In Japan, the Kyoto Modern Architecture Festival opens modern buildings across the city to the public at the same time, and its list runs from residences, banks, schools, and churches to contemporary architecture and national treasures; Docomomo Japan works to record and preserve buildings of the Modern Movement.
02In the gallery
Pick one wall of a building and find where ornament could have gone: is the plain surface there concrete, glass, or metal?
Wall label terms in Japanese
- 近代建築
- Modern architecture
- モダニズム建築
- Modernist architecture
- インターナショナル・スタイル
- International Style
- 機能主義
- Functionalism
- 鉄筋コンクリート
- Reinforced concrete
03Notes
Modern architecture is shaped by materials and function rather than ornament.
This time, at 2026 Kyoto Modern Architecture Festival —
In front of a building, which do you notice first: its structure, its materials, or its decoration?