Lao Art Museum

The Lao Art Museum, located in Nonsa-at Village, Saythany District, Vientiane, showcases traditional Lao woodcarvings and promotes cultural sustainability. Founded by Phisith Sayathith, it serves as a hub for cultural preservation, artistic exploration, and international tourism.

Planning your visit

The Lao Art Museum in Vientiane's Saythany district is dedicated to traditional Lao woodcarving, a craft with deep roots in a country where temple architecture, furniture and religious sculpture were all worked in wood. Founded by Phisith Sayathith, it functions as much as a workshop and preservation project as a display space, showing carved panels, figures and architectural elements alongside the techniques and tools that produce them, with an explicit emphasis on keeping the skills alive rather than archiving them.

Laos receives far fewer visitors than its neighbours, and its craft traditions are correspondingly less documented, which makes a museum devoted to one of them unusual and worth the detour.

It sits outside central Vientiane, which is the main practical consideration — the city is small and walkable but this is beyond it.

Bookable options mostly handle that. Formats include entry tickets with transfers, sometimes by electric vehicle, and city day tours that combine the museum with Vientiane's principal sights: That Luang, Patuxai, the Buddha Park and the temples along the Mekong. Some include lunch. Given the transport requirement, bundled formats are generally more practical than arranging the trip independently. Current availability is listed below.