Simose Art Museum in western Japan has won this year's Prix Versailles award as the world's most beautiful museum.

Selection of the complex designed by Japanese architect Ban Shigeru was announced at UNESCO headquarters in Paris on Monday.

The museum category was added this year to the prize, which began in 2015 and has honored hotels, airports and other types of buildings.

The Simose Art Museum opened in Hiroshima Prefecture's Otake City in March 2023. The facility houses about 500 works including Japanese and Western modern art and Western craft.

Museum officials say the facility's colorful exhibition rooms, inspired by the islands dotting the Seto Inland Sea, were seen as harmonizing with the surrounding scenery. They also say the mobile exhibition rooms that float on water were praised as innovative.

A visitor in his 30s from neighboring Yamaguchi Prefecture said he was interested in the building itself, and that he has not seen anything like it.

The museum's PR official Kawaguchi Hina says the award is a great honor, and will hopefully draw more visitors.