Hatajuku, Hakone: Making a Yosegi Coaster Where the Marquetry Craft Was Born

Hatajuku, in southern Hakone Town, is the birthplace of Hakone yosegi-zaiku, a wood marquetry craft that originated about two hundred years ago. At the Hatajuku Yosegi Kaikan visitors can make an original yosegi coaster, combining the parts as they like and gluing them together. Workshops, hands-on facilities and a museum now line up in Hatajuku, starting with the Kaikan, so the craft can be tried as well as seen. It is a place to learn marquetry by hand rather than through a shop window.

Making a Yosegi Coaster, and Where to Watch the Work Done

The hands-on part of a visit is the coaster. At the Hatajuku Yosegi Kaikan the kit contains six parts in each of three colors, and the coaster is finished by combining those parts as you like and gluing them together, eighteen trapezoid pieces in all.

Once the design is decided, the rest is only gluing with adhesive, and the coaster is finished in about ten minutes. The workshop as a whole takes about fifty minutes, which leaves room to think the pattern through.

The Kaikan also shows the tools and works of Hakone yosegi-zaiku, introduces the shops with workshops in Hatajuku and sells souvenirs, so it serves as a starting point for the rest of Hatajuku. The hall sits in a quiet setting surrounded by trees.

Among the workshops, hands-on facilities and museum lined up in Hatajuku, the Hamamatsuya main store is where demonstrations can be watched at any time, on the second floor. If you want to try the craft yourself, the coaster kit keeps the decisions to the pattern, since the rest is gluing; if you would rather watch than make, Hamamatsuya needs no timing, because the demonstrations can be viewed at any time.

Yosegi-zaiku: Thin Veneers, Solid Wood and a Craft Born Here

Yosegi-zaiku is a craft made by gathering pieces of wood together: precise woodworking that arranges the colors and grain of many natural woods into geometric patterns, which is why even the coaster kit comes in three colors rather than one.

Two methods are used. In zuku-bari, a pattern board is shaved into very thin sheets with a special plane and the sheets are applied to the outside of small boxes as decoration. In muku-zukuri, the thick patterned board itself is worked directly into the shape of the product, hollowed out on a lathe.

Wood from the Hakone mountains, used before, can no longer be cut because the area became a national park, so it is now hardly used. Yosegi-zaiku was born in Hatajuku while it was still a post town, and the craft assembled as a coaster at the Kaikan is the one that took shape here. Ishikawa Nihei of Hatajuku is said to have started it by joining woods of different colors and grains from the varied trees of those mountains into trays and boxes, which the coaster kit still echoes.

If you like seeing how a pattern is built, notice that the woods differ in material and hardness, which is why working them takes considerable skill; the coaster kit covers the combining and gluing side, while the planing of thin sheets and the lathe work are the parts to watch at a demonstration.

Hatajuku on the Old Tokaido

Travelers passed through Hatajuku as a midway point on the crossing of Hakone, and it was in that post town that yosegi-zaiku was born.

The stone pavement still remaining near Hatajuku was built by villagers on orders from the shogunate for that crossing, and the original design of the yosegi pattern is said to have been this stone pavement of the Hakone Old Tokaido, which links the pattern in a coaster to the paving nearby.

During maintenance work, the footpath through the Hatajuku-Yamane stretch of the Old Tokaido cannot be visited or walked, including the Ichirizuka milestone and the stone pavement there; the road to the Hatajuku trout fishing pond remains passable, and travelers are asked to detour via a prefectural road during the planned period listed below.

If walking the Old Tokaido was the plan, treat the Hatajuku-Yamane stretch as off the list during the maintenance work and give the time to the coaster at the Kaikan and the demonstrations at Hamamatsuya instead. For an overnight stay, there is a list of places to stay in Hakone.

Getting to Hatajuku

Leg	How	Time or cost
Hakone-Yumoto Station, stop no. 4	Hakone Tozan Bus, K route, bound for Hatajuku via the old highway	-
Hakone-Yumoto Station to the stop nearest the Kaikan	Hakone Tozan Bus, K route	15 minutes
That stop to the Hatajuku Yosegi Kaikan	Walk	About 2 minutes
Hakone Shindo road to the Hatajuku Yosegi Kaikan	Car	About 5 minutes
Hamamatsuya main store	Car park	About 10 cars, consultation needed for 2 large buses
Hatajuku-Yamane stretch of the Old Tokaido	Closed for maintenance work	From 2026-08-17 to 2027-01-15 (planned)
Hakone Tourist Information Center	Walk from Hakone-Yumoto Station	1 minute

New to rural buses and one-man trains? See how to ride them, step by step.

Hours and Fees

Place	What	Hours or fee
Hatajuku Yosegi Kaikan	Opening hours	10:00 to 16:00
Hatajuku Yosegi Kaikan	Closing days	Tuesdays and Thursdays, except public holidays, and over the year-end and New Year period
Hatajuku Yosegi Kaikan	Coaster-making workshop, per person, tax included	1,600 yen
Hamamatsuya main store	Business hours	9:00 to 17:30
Hamamatsuya branch store	Business hours	10:00 to 17:00
Kanazashi Woodcraft shop	Business hours	10:30 to 15:30
Kanazashi Woodcraft shop	Closing days	Mondays and Wednesdays
Kanazashi Woodcraft	Coaster-making workshop, per participant	1,650 yen
Hakone Tourist Information Center	Business hours	9:00 to 17:45

The coaster workshop at the Kaikan can be booked online with no member registration, and online booking is accepted twenty-four hours a day.