Tokyo National Museum
Japan’s oldest and largest museum, with national treasures in Ueno Park.
The Tokyo National Museum is Japan's oldest and largest museum. It traces its origins to a public exhibition held at the Yushima Seidō in 1872, early in the Meiji era, and moved to its present site at the northern end of Ueno Park in 1882. Today it cares for around 120,000 objects, including 89 National Treasures and more than 600 Important Cultural Properties, covering Japanese and wider Asian art and archaeology from prehistoric times to the modern period.
The museum occupies several buildings grouped around a central fountain. The Honkan, or Japanese Gallery, was designed by Watanabe Jin and completed in 1938 to replace Josiah Conder's earlier building, which was badly damaged in the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923; its reinforced-concrete structure is topped by a tiled roof in the so-called Imperial Crown style. The Hyōkeikan, a domed Western-style pavilion by Katayama Tōkuma, opened in 1909 to commemorate the wedding of the future Emperor Taishō.
The Tōyōkan, designed by Taniguchi Yoshirō and opened in 1968, presents art and archaeology from China, Korea, South and Southeast Asia, West Asia and Egypt. The Heiseikan, opened in 1999, houses the Japanese archaeology gallery and hosts large special exhibitions. The Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures, rebuilt in 1999 to a design by Taniguchi Yoshio, displays objects presented to the Imperial Household in 1878 by Hōryūji temple in Nara. Displays in the permanent galleries rotate regularly to protect fragile works.
Highlights
- Japan's oldest museum, founded in 1872
- Around 120,000 objects, including 89 National Treasures
- Honkan of 1938 with its Imperial Crown-style tiled roof
- Domed Hyōkeikan of 1909, a rare Meiji-era Western-style museum building
- Gallery of Hōryūji Treasures by Taniguchi Yoshio, set behind a shallow pool
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