Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum

The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum sits inside Ueno Park and opened in 1926 as Japan's first public art museum. The current brick building was designed in 1975 by Kunio Maekawa, a disciple of Le Corbusier, who deliberately kept the structure low in deference to the park - much of the exhibition space lies underground to minimise visible building height. Unlike the nearby Tokyo National Museum with its historical collections, this institution shows only rotating exhibitions, with a focus on contemporary Japanese painting and calligraphy alongside occasional international blockbusters from Brueghel to Munch. Several gallery floors are also rented by Japanese art associations for member exhibitions, making the museum a dense gathering point for the national art scene.