Tokyo National Museum — museum
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Tokyo National Museum

  • 2 min read
  • 35.719° N 139.776° E

Why it is worth it

The Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park is Japan's oldest national museum and its largest art museum. The best way to understand it is as the country's treasure house: of the roughly 900 works of art and craft that Japan has designated National Treasures, the museum owns 89, about a tenth, along with more than 600 Important Cultural Properties. It dates its founding to a public exhibition of 1872, held in the Confucian hall at Yushima Seidō, which gathered objects for Japan's display at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair. Only a small part of the collection is on view at any time. Displays rotate every four to eight weeks, so a return visit shows you different things.

The museum is really a campus of buildings from different eras. The Honkan, the main Japanese Gallery, is Jin Watanabe's "Imperial Crown" design: a concrete Western-style building under a heavy Japanese tiled roof, finished in 1938 after the Great Kantō earthquake destroyed Josiah Conder's earlier brick hall. Walk its two floors in order for a chronological sweep of Japanese art, with Buddhist sculpture, lacquer, swords, armour, screens and ink painting. Next to it the Hyōkeikan (1909), a domed, late-Meiji Western-style building, opens only for special exhibitions. The Tōyōkan holds the Asian Gallery, with Chinese bronzes, Gandharan Buddhist sculpture and art along the Silk Road, set out on split levels that give six floors of display inside a three-storey building.

The quietest and most memorable room may be the Gallery of Hōryū-ji Treasures, a cool, minimal building by Yoshio Taniguchi opened in 1999. It holds the 319 objects that Nara's Hōryū-ji temple gave to the Imperial Household in 1878, shown in low light, with a reference room upstairs where the whole group can be browsed digitally in several languages. Behind the Honkan is a garden that opens for seasonal views, and the grounds hold outdoor exhibits including the old black gate known as the Kuromon. A short walk to the northwest, the Kuroda Memorial Hall shows the work of Kuroda Seiki, one of the leading Japanese painters in the Western (yōga) style.

Getting there

The museum is at the northern end of Ueno Park in Taitō ward, about 1.3 km from the centre of the ward. The nearest stations are Ueno (JR East and Tokyo Metro) and Uguisudani (JR East); Keisei Ueno also serves the park. From Ueno Station it is a walk through the park. Tokyo Haneda Airport (HND) is about 19 km away.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Tokyo 5The Most Beautiful Places in Japan 122The Most Beautiful Buildings in Japan 9The Most Remarkable 19th-Century Museums 12The Most Beautiful 19th-Century Buildings 28The Most Remarkable Museums 93The Most Beautiful Buildings 286

From the encyclopaedia

The Tokyo National Museum or TNM is an art museum in Ueno Park in the Taitō ward of Tokyo, Japan. It is considered the oldest national museum and the largest art museum in Japan. The museum collects, preserves, and displays a comprehensive collection of artwork and cultural objects from Asia, with a focus on ancient and medieval Japanese art and Asian art along the Silk Road. There is also a large collection of Greco-Buddhist art. As of April 2023, the museum held approximately 120,000 Cultural Properties, including 89 National Treasures, 319 Horyuji Treasures, and 649 Important Cultural Properties. As of the same date, the Japanese government had designated 902 works of art and crafts as National Treasures and 10,820 works of art and crafts as Important Cultural Properties, so the museum holds about 10% of the works of art and crafts designated as National Treasures and 6% of those designated as Important Cultural Properties. The museum also holds 2,651 cultural properties deposited by individuals and organisations, of which 54 are National Treasures and 262 are Important Cultural Properties. Of these, 3,000 cultural properties are on display at one time, with each changing for between four and eight weeks. The museum also conducts research and organizes educational events related to its collection.

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35.71889, 139.77639per Wikidata