National Art Center, Tokyo

The National Art Center, Tokyo, in the Minato ward opened in 2007 as Japan's largest exhibition hall, with around 14,000 square metres of floor space and no permanent collection. Instead of holding its own holdings, it rents its ten galleries to major touring exhibitions and to the annual shows of Japan's long-established art societies. The curving glass facade by the late star architect Kisho Kurokawa rides on a tall, wave-shaped aluminium frame that makes the building look as if it were breathing in the sunlight. Inside, two inverted cones rise as free-standing restaurant levels into the main hall, the upper one housing the Parisian restaurant Paul Bocuse. With the Mori Art Museum and the Suntory Museum of Art it forms the Roppongi Art Triangle. Tickets are sold per exhibition; most special shows cost 1,500 to 2,000 yen. It pays to visit after dark when the facade glows like a light sculpture.