The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

Overview of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum occupies the southern end of Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park, directly aligned with the Atomic Bomb Dome across the Motoyasu River. It is the city’s primary institution for documenting the events of August 6, 1945 — the day the world’s first wartime atomic bomb was dropped — and communicating their human cost to visitors from around the world.

The museum was established in 1955, a decade after the bombing, and has since grown into one of Japan’s most significant and emotionally affecting cultural institutions. Its two interconnected buildings — the Main Building and the East Building — were both designed by architect Kenzo Tange, whose modernist pillared structure has itself become a landmark of the Peace Memorial Park.

The Main Building is the museum’s emotional core. Its permanent exhibitions center on the personal stories of bombing victims, presenting recovered belongings, charred clothing, watches stopped at 8:15 a.m., and handwritten accounts of survival. Many items are rotated annually to slow their deterioration. The displays are unflinching, and the effect on visitors is often profound.

The East Building provides broader historical context, covering Hiroshima’s development before the war, the city’s wartime role, the political decisions that led to the bombing, and the nuclear age that followed. The first floor of the East Building hosts rotating free thematic exhibitions, while upper floors are dedicated to themes including nuclear weapons and the ongoing global disarmament movement.

The museum also runs daily talks by hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) or their designated legacy successors — a program that has become increasingly important as the generation of direct survivors grows smaller. Pamphlets and audio guides are available in a wide range of languages.