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    1. Tokyo National Museum
      Photo: Tokyo National Museum | Tokyo National Museum
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    2. Tokyo National Museum
      Photo: Tokyo National Museum | Tokyo National Museum
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    3. Tokyo National Museum
      Photo: Courtesy of Tokyo National Museum
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    4. Tokyo National Museum
      Tokyo National Museum | 春の庭園開放
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    Tokyo National Museum

    • Museums
    • Ueno
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    Time Out says

    If you have just one day to devote to museum-going in Tokyo and are interested in Japanese art and artefacts, this is the place to visit. Japan’s oldest and largest museum houses over 110,000 items.

    Past the ornate gateway, there’s a wide courtyard and pond surrounded by three main buildings. Directly in front is the Honkan, or main gallery, dating from 1938, which displays the permanent collection of Japanese arts and antiquities. The 25 rooms regularly rotate their exhibitions of paintings, ceramics, swords, kimonos, sculptures and the like.

    The Toyokan building to the right features five floors of artworks from other parts of Asia. The Hyokeikan, the 1909 European-style building to the left, is only open for special exhibitions. Behind the Hyokeikan is the Gallery of Horyu-ji Treasures, which houses some of Japanese Buddhism’s most important and ancient artefacts, from the seventh-century Horyu-ji temple in Nara.

    The Heiseikan, behind the Honkan, holds three to four temporary exhibitions of Japanese and Asian art each year. There are also a couple of restaurants in the complex, and a good gift shop.

    Details

    Address
    13-9 Ueno Koen, Taito
    Tokyo
    Transport:
    Ueno Station (Ginza, Hibiya, Yamanote, Keihin-Tohoku lines), Keisei-Ueno Station (Keisei Main line)
    Price:
    ¥1,000 for adults, university students ¥500, free for everyone under 18
    Opening hours:
    9.30am-5pm (until 8pm on Fri & Sat), closed Mon (except holidays)

    What’s on

    Zen Night Tokyo

    Neuro-tech startup VIE is bringing its masterful soundscape engineering to Tokyo National Museum for the first time with Zen Night Tokyo, an event taking place in the gardens behind the main museum building from October 14 to December 6. Held to coincide with the upcoming ‘Daitoku-ji: Japan’s Unrivalled Zen Monastery – 700th Anniversary Special Exhibition', the Japanese garden is hosting this special after-hours autumn leaves illumination spectacle designed to soothe the senses and let visitors admire the natural beauty of the grounds, which are ordinarily closed to the public. Themed around the Buddhist concepts of rebirth and cyclical existence, this immersive journey guides visitors through different areas along the mirror-like Suigetsu pond, including an open-air teahouse zone where you can enter different realms through soundscapes tuned to distinct wavelengths, each designed to evoke a unique emotional experience. Continuing along the pond, visitors discover a path of spider lilies, flowers often associated with the arrival of autumn and the honouring of ancestral spirits. Aptly named Hyakki Yado (Night Path of One Hundred Demons), the path is lined with some 3,000 hauntingly beautiful spider lilies illuminated against the night. Meanwhile, at the Kujokan teahouse, you can drink matcha while admiring the breathtaking illuminated rock garden. The tea experience is paired with a high-tech ‘Brainwave Zen’ meditation experience, which involves measuring brainwaves with...
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