What Kyoto Handicraft Center is known for

Founded from a 1947 Kyo Zogan damascene workshop by Shintaro Oda, this Higashiyama complex opened as a duty-free crafts center in 1967, gathering Kyoto artisans under one roof selling kimono, woodblock prints, pottery, lacquerware and more.

Kyoto Handicraft Center traces back to 1947, when the Amita Damascene Corporation began as a small studio dedicated to Kyo Zogan — an intricate metal-inlay technique once used to decorate samurai swords. Founder Shintaro Oda expanded the idea in 1967, opening the Kyoto Handicraft Center as a tax-free shopping complex near Heian-jingu Shrine in the Higashiyama district, built specifically to gather craftspeople from multiple disciplines under one roof and give them a shared platform as international tourism to Kyoto grew.

Kyo Zogan damascene remains part of the offering, but the center has expanded well beyond it: kimono and yukata, Japanese woodblock prints, kokeshi and other traditional dolls, hanging scrolls, ornamental swords and armor, lacquerware, wooden crafts and pottery all have space on the floor. The center also runs cultural programming, including opportunities to meet a maiko, an apprentice geisha, adding a live cultural element to what is otherwise a retail visit.

For visitors trying to cover a range of Japanese crafts in a single stop rather than seeking out individual ateliers across the city, the center works as a concentrated, multi-generational survey of Kyoto craftsmanship, still anchored by the damascene work it started with.