Japan does museums right. They are generally cheap, informative, and interactive. To this date, I’ve enjoyed every museum I’ve visited while in Japan, but the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology might rank amongst my favorites. 

This museum is ¥500 for adults, ¥300 for seniors and Junior/High School students, and ¥200 for Elementary students. 

When you think of Toyota, you probably automatically think of cars. Actually, Toyota started as a company that built automatic looms. 

The automatic looms were invented by Sakichi Toyoda. Sakichi’s oldest son, Kiichiro spent his childhood in the factory and learned many skills to include engineering. From here, Kiichiro’s passion began to evolve into motor vehicles, which eventually led to the Toyota Motor Corporation. So yeah, the automobile maker we all know as Toyota started as an invention of automatic looms by Sakichi Toyoda. 

We spent well over two hours exploring the museum. It started in the Textile Machinery Pavilion, which had displays of the original loom and how it progressed as technology made further advancements. Many museum employees showed us demonstrations on separating and strengthening cotton and gave presentations on how certain machinery worked. 

After visiting the Textile Machinery Pavilion, we made our way to the Automobile Pavilion. I very much enjoyed this section. The automobile portion had many interactive displays, you would press a button and it would show you the technology used to assemble a car. There was also many showcasings of cars on display, everything from Toyota’s first cars the A1 and G1, all the way to fancy and expensive sports cars. 

Adding to the cherry on top, there is a violin playing robot at this museum near the entrance. He plays a several times a day, there is a schedule with the times. The partner robot played 2 songs and received a round of applause from the audience.