Kanagawa by Design: Sugimoto's Observatory, Hakone Glass & Yokohama's Architecture — 2 Days

Photographer-artist Hiroshi Sugimoto's life-work above the sea at Odawara — a complex of a 100-metre summer-solstice gallery, a winter-solstice tunnel, a stone Noh stage cantilevered toward the horizon, ancient relocated gates and a tea house, all set in citrus groves facing Sagami Bay. Part land art, part architecture, part observatory of light and time.

Reservation-only, advance booking required (monthly release, sells out); two sessions, ~10:00–13:00 and ~13:30–16:30; closed Tue & Wed; age 12+; ¥3,300 (approx., 2026). Book this first and plan the trip around it.

A museum to the Art Nouveau and Art Deco glass and jewellery of Rene Lalique in the Sengokuhara highlands, its low buildings set in a garden, with a restored Orient Express salon car on the grounds where you can take tea among Lalique's own interior glass panels.

Roughly 9:00–16:00; ¥1,500 adult (approx., 2026); closed the 3rd Thursday monthly (open daily in August). The Orient Express car tea is walk-in, first-come; the garden restaurant needs no museum ticket.

A Venetian-glass museum in an Italianate setting at Sengokuhara, with a crystal-glass archway and a garden where strings of glass beads catch the mountain light. The architecture and grounds are as much the draw as the collection of Murano glass from the Renaissance on.

Roughly 10:00–17:30; ~¥1,800 adult (approx., 2026); a short annual mid-winter closure. A few minutes from the Lalique Museum along the Sengokuhara road.

A Hoshino Resorts hotel inside the former Yokohama City Hall, a 1959 modernist landmark by the architect Togo Murano, in Kannai — the conversion preserves Murano's tile murals, the assembly-chamber lighting and the grand staircase. A place to sleep inside the architecture the day was about.

Opened April 2026 in Kannai, by Yokohama Stadium; rooms roughly ¥25,000–45,000/night (approx., 2026). Ask about the building-heritage details preserved in the public spaces.

Yokohama's international passenger terminal, a landmark of contemporary architecture whose roof is a continuous undulating deck of wood and lawn with no columns or clear front and back — you walk straight up onto it for a 360-degree view of the bay, the bridge and the Minato Mirai skyline.

Rooftop deck free and open around the clock; busiest when a cruise ship is in. Early morning is empty and the light is best (approx., 2026). A short walk from Nihon-odori.

Two Meiji-era brick customs warehouses on the Shinko waterfront, built in the 1900s and restored as a shopping, dining and events complex that keeps the iron shutters, riveted columns and brick mass intact. A model of industrial-heritage reuse and one of the city's signature buildings.

Shops roughly 11:00–20:00, open daily; free to enter and walk the brick halls (approx., 2026). Seasonal events fill the plaza between the two buildings.

The Yokohama outpost of the all-day-dining room famous for its ricotta hotcakes, set inside the Red Brick Warehouse with harbour views through the old warehouse windows. A relaxed, light lunch that keeps you inside the architecture before you move on.

Open from morning through dinner (hours vary by day); no fixed closing day. Inside the Red Brick Warehouse; reservations help at weekend lunch (approx., 2026).