A city where the greatest collections of Japanese art sit a few stations from some of the world's best contemporary museums, and from very strange small ones.
Japan's oldest museum, with the largest collection of Japanese art in the world. The national treasures rotate, so what's on changes every few weeks.
Le Corbusier's only building in East Asia (1959), a UNESCO site, built for the Matsukata collection of Rodin and the Impressionists.
Contemporary art on the 53rd floor, open late every night.
A collection of Japanese and East Asian art, in a Kengo Kuma building with a long garden.
Tokyo's big public museum of contemporary art, in a quiet neighbourhood of coffee roasters.
The Ishibashi Foundation's museum: Impressionism, Japanese modernism and contemporary art.
A contemporary gallery in a 200-year-old public bathhouse.
Rooms, ruins and curiosities: the city's other museum.
The sculptor Fumio Asakura's house and studio: a dark concrete studio, a wooden house around a water garden, and cats.
Taro Okamoto's studio and garden, with his sculptures.
A small free museum of parasites, including an 8.8-metre tapeworm.
A prince's Art Deco residence of 1933, with glass doors by René Lalique.
A small museum in Hokusai's home district, in a building by Kazuyo Sejima.
Kenzo Tange's cathedral of 1964: eight curved steel-clad walls rise from a diamond plan and meet in a cross of skylights.
A small Metabolist tower by Kenzo Tange (1967), with office boxes hanging off a single concrete cylinder, as if the building could grow.
Kenzo Tange's stadium for the 1964 Olympics, with a roof hung from steel cables like a tent. One of the most beautiful buildings in Japan.
The temple of the beckoning cat: thousands of white maneki-neko figurines, left by people whose wishes came true, fill the shelves by the shrine.
Mori Art Museum · until 28 Mar 2027
Mori Art Museum, Small Exhibition Gallery · until 28 Mar 2027
Sen-Oku Hakuko Kan, Tokyo · 3 Nov – 13 Dec 2026
See the full selection →The Hakone Open-Air Museum and the Pola Museum, 90 minutes away.
The Great Buddha, an hour by train.
Tokyo National Museum → the National Museum of Western Art → walk to Yanaka: SCAI and the Asakura Museum → train to Roppongi → the Mori Art Museum at night.