The Rise of Kanazawa’s Art Jewel

In Japan’s Kanazawa prefecture, a 2.5-hour bullet train from Tokyo to the country’s western coastline brings visitors to an immersive contemporary art museum that has quietly enjoyed two decades of ambitious growth. Designed by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA—recipients of the 2010 Pritzker Prize and the duo behind New York’s New Museum of Contemporary Art and the Louvre-Lens in northern France—the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa is housed in a striking...