Fittingly, The Japan Sword Museum sits amid the Kyu Yasuda Garden, a public park that once belonged to an 18th-century Samurai estate. Famous warriors during the country’s pre-Modern era, Samurai were leading patrons of swordsmiths who forged the bow-shaped, single-edged blades, each one a lethal weapon and an exquisite work of art. Though swords in Japan had become merely ornamental by the end of the 19th century, many were confiscated by the Allied Occupation forces following World War II. Fearing their extinction, the Society for the Preservation of Japanese Art Swords was founded in 1948 for the purpose of collecting, displaying and appraising the blades and related accoutrements. Conveniently, the availability of this pond-side property, where the Ryogoku Public Hall built in 1926 once stood, coincided with the organization’s recent need for a new building. For the design of this facility, they turned to Maki and Associates.