Tokyo’s Museum Scene — Part 2: The Superstar Museums
There are way over a hundred museums around Japanese capital each contributing to the orchestral pulse of Tokyo cultural scene. There are museums storing national and world heritage treasures, others exhibiting freshly painted works from renowned contemporary artists, others displaying stuff — a carriage, a kitchen stove—, mementos of past eras. There are places for any kind of curiosity around the city.
Among those 100+ museums, there are a few superstars. Those are the ones that get overcrowded every Saturday afternoon. The must-go places. Tokyo’s equivalence of the Louvre or the MoMA. The most exciting ones, with incredible curation, very rich content, a lot of resources and perfect English translations. Here is the list of those superstar museums that concentrate so much of Tokyo and more largely of Japanese cultural scene.
Tokyo National Museum —東京 国立博物館
I already mentioned that one in my previous article, and it deserves to be mentioned again. Tokyo National Museum (or TNM for the initiated) is THE center to discover about Japanese history, culture and classical arts. The very first museum of Japan and the biggest of the country, the TNE is also one of the four National Museums of the country, along with the museums of Kyushu in Fukuoka, of Nara and of Kyoto.
The main building purposely mixes Western neoclassical architecture like the massive stone columns, with Japanese features such as the shape of the roof. It was conceived by the architect Jin Watanabe in the 1930s, the same architect which designed the Wako clock-tower building in Ginza. It was built after the original building, designed by a British architect, was heavily damaged by the Great Kantô earthquake of 1923.
This main building is dedicated to Japanese classical arts from prehistorical times to modern era, with 24 exhibition rooms. Four other buildings are surrounding the main one. One of them contains the Asian Gallery with collections of art pieces from all over Asia up to the Middle-East. The TNE like the British Museum or the Louvre aims to display not only national culture but also to be a continental hub to learn about the variety as well as the similitudes between Asian forms of arts. Two other buildings hold regularly temporary exhibitions on very varied themes, and the last one contains more national treasures, digital archives and a restaurant.
The TNM is not merely there to store Japanese and Asian treasures; it is also an active center for research and promotion of the country and region’s culture. Indeed, if offers various activities, lectures and talks for schools, families or anyone who want to learn various topics touching Japanese culture and beyond. Next month for example there will be a talk about the famous author Mori Ogai as well as a workshop for people to come and try putting on a kimono. While on one side there are a lot of researchers publishing books and conducting symposiums using the resources of the TNM, the museum is also a very popular place for everyone to come and learn. This is made possible thanks to cheap entrance prices: a ticket for the general exhibitions costs 620 yen for adults and is free for people under 18, above 70 and for students from public Japanese universities (410 yen for the other students).
Edo-Tokyo Museum — 江戸東京博物館
In 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu becomes the shôgun, or military leader, of Japan by seizing political control of the country from the Emperor. Clever and visionary, he then establishes his castle, and de facto the capital, in the small town of Edo, far East from Kyoto which had been the capital of Japan for nearly a millennium. From a small fishing village, Edo grows frenetically in the 17th century to become the most populated city in the world. Then in 1868 the Emperor Meiji restores the Imperial power and decides to move from Kyoto to Edo which becomes the official capital of Japan. In the process ‘Edo’ (江戸, the bay entrance) is renamed Tokyo (東京, the Eastern capital). Since then much more happened in Tokyo: frequent fires ravaging the wooden houses, earthquakes, World War II… The city was burnt down to ashes and reborn countless times until 1945 and then kept prospering and growing to what it is now. This is, briefly, the story of Edo/Tokyo as it is explained with much more details in the Edo-Tokyo Museum.
This museum thus focuses on the narration of the history of Tokyo from its foundation in premodern times up to this day. It does so by displaying items, maps, documentary films and many other media to make the visitor’s experience as entertaining and rich as possible.
The part on Edo (17th–19th centuries) contain reproductions in real size as well as miniatures of prominent areas of the city such as Nihonbashi, the former economic center of Japan. Thanks to those elaborated visuals, visitors really get the chance to imagine how life could have been two, three centuries ago in Edo.
The part on Tokyo (19th century-now) is also very interesting and contains black and white to color videos of the city, focuses on the times the city was destroyed due to natural and man-made disasters and then rebuilt, but also on the urban cultural forms that developed in the different neighborhoods of the capital. I particularly enjoy the very end of the exhibition where are summarized in one long glass-case the fashion and cultural items that were trendy every in Tokyo every decade from WWII until today.
The museum gives a great explanations of the changes that occurred in Tokyo during modern times. Tokyo as the capital has been the theater of events that echoed all around the country, so when learning about the history of Tokyo, we also learn about the modern history of Japan. I definitely recommend this museum for those curious about city history, willing to understand how Tokyo became this huge and chaotic megalopolis as it is today and also to have first-hand access to materials recreating the past life of Tokyo, and more generally of Japan.
The Edo-Tokyo Museum is located in the not so touristic and very old area of Ryôgoku, on the East side of the Sumida River. Juxtaposed to the museum is the Ryôgoku Kokugikan Sumo Hall hosting Sumo tournaments in January, May and September every year.
The entrance to the museum is relatively cheap: 600 yen in general, discounts for students, teens and children and people over 65. It also has great temporary exhibition rolling all year round. The museum’s shop offers great quality of Japanese items such as furoshiki (a piece of fine clothes knotted to make a bag or used as a wrapping) that make great souvenirs.
The National Art Center, Tokyo — 国立新美術館
The NACT (in Japanese the New National Art Museum) of Roppongi which I already briefly talked about in the first part of this article series is the prominent place for classic to contemporary, international to Japanese art in Tokyo.
The NACT is an ‘empty museum’, it does not have any permanent exhibition but continually hosts temporary exhibitions, able to accommodate more than 10 at a time. Its program is always very varied, mixing French classical paintings and mangaka artist work surveys, floating exhibitions from internationally renown contemporary artists and exhibitions curated by less famous Japanese art associations.
The museum is worth seeing also for its unique architecture conceived by Kisho Kurosawa. Opened only a decade ago, this new museum already managed to impose itself as one of Tokyo’s most visited museum. Prices for its exhibitions vary case by case; sometimes it is free, but more often exhibitions at the NACT are quite expensive (count around 1500 yen for general public and 1000 yen with a discount).
My favorite thing about this museum is the space that is given to contemporary artists. Sporadically occurring Artist File exhibitions for example give space to artists from diverse countries to come expose their creations. In 2015, 12 Koreans and Japanese artists participated. Many artists created installations sometimes simply beautiful, but at times also presenting through art problems of our contemporary societies, engaged works that vocalized otherwise often silenced issues.
Ghibli Museum — 三鷹の森ジブリ美術館
A museum? A marvelous playground? An odd house? Hard to corner in a word the experience offered by the Ghibli Museum, the museum in the forest of Mitaka in Japanese.
The Ghibli museum was designed by Hayao Miyazaki himself, the founder of the Studio Ghibli and director of so many brilliant animation movies such as My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away or The Wind Rises. From the outside, the building is an architectural fantasy completely surrounded by plants, an echo to the bucolic settings of many Ghibli movies. Situated inside the Inokashira Park but away from the agitation around the lake and the zoo area, this museum seems surreal, as if after getting lost among the trees of Inokashira Park, the visitor finally arrives inside one of Miyazaki’s movies. Contributing to that atmosphere, a giant robot from the movie The Castle in the Sky points its head above the museum.
Inside the museum is yet another fantastic universe. Mixing art exhibitions with drawings and other content from the Ghibli Studio, characters such as Totoro or the Neko-bus reproduced in real-size for children (and for adults, well and for me) to interact with, a movie theater for viewing exclusive short movies from the studio and much more things, the museum is a house of wonders defying the definition of a museum. But the museum is not a mere display of elements from Ghibli movies, it has a soul on its own, many exhibits which do not refer to any movie; in short it is a complete and perfected creation from Miyazaki’s mind. Hours pass like seconds walking around that big house, exploring the imaginary of the truly amazing Hayao Miyazaki and his studio.
The Ghibli Museum is primarily for people who enjoy the work of the Ghibli Studio, but anyone, children and adults alike can have fun wandering around the mansion. Adult’s tickets are sold 1000 yen at Lawson convenient stores in Japan, or through JTB travel agency from abroad. Then it gets cheaper and cheaper under 18, 12, 6 and free under 4 years old. Note that you absolutely need to book your visit in advance as there are no ticket booth at the entrance of the museum. Moreover, this museum is EXTREMELY popular and tickets are often sold out a month in advance so make sure to book a long time before your visit!
The Ghibli Museum is truly an experience that make you feel in a parallel universe for the span of a couple of hours. A sort of idyllic return to childhood, a parenthesis away from daily life worries or concerns about the world. It is also a terrible incentive to watch or re-watch all the movies from the Ghibli Studio and to look forward to the newly announced one to be released by 2020. The Ghibli Studio is really unique for having marked two generations of Japanese, but also many people across Asia and across the world with its movies promoting values of imagination, pacifism, love and respect for the nature.
Those museums are for me the four superstars of Tokyo’s museum scene. They are all very different in their content and their approach to what a museum is, but they all also all fascinating, popular and beautiful places. All are places worth visiting at least once, and then again and again to (re)discover their exhibitions or participate to the cultural events they are organizing.
This article is part of a series aiming to present Tokyo’s museum scene. From pulsating cultural centers to hidden peripheral rooms, there are dozens of incredible museums to visit and hundreds of permanent and temporary exhibitions for everyone’s taste. These articles are meant to be an introduction for tourists to find their personal must-go picks and for locals to discover new places and get the best time exploring the amazing city of Tokyo. To read the first article on Roppongi and Ueno areas, click here, and click here to reach the third article about the lesser known but all the more great museums of the city.
