Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum

Listen for a moment. Behind you, Ueno Park carries its usual sounds. You hear footsteps on gravel, crows calling from the old trees, and perhaps a street performer somewhere near the fountain. In front of you, the ground seems to fall away. A wide entrance plaza steps down below the level of the path. Low walls of warm, reddish-brown tile run along it and catch the light. This is the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum. Locals often call it Tobikan, a short form of its Japanese name.

At first, the building looks modest for a major museum. It does not tower over the park, and that is deliberate. Much of the museum sits below ground. The architect kept the visible mass low so that it would not dominate the trees and open spaces of Ueno. As you walk down into the plaza, the noise of the park drops away. The space feels sheltered, almost like a courtyard. It is a quiet start before you go inside.

The story of this institution begins long before this building. The museum first opened in 1926 as the Tokyo Prefectural Art Museum. It is widely described as the first public art museum in Japan. At that time, Japanese artists had few permanent places to show their work to the public. Exhibitions were often held in temporary halls. A dedicated, public building for art was a new idea in the city, and it changed how ordinary Tokyo residents could meet contemporary art.

Here is the first surprise. The government did not pay for the original museum. A private donor did. Sato Keitaro was a businessman from Kyushu, the large island in the south-west of Japan. He made his fortune in the coal trade. He gave a large gift to build a home for art in the capital. Many visitors walk through these halls without knowing this. The museum exists because one person believed that art should belong to everyone.

The building you see today is not the 1926 original. The present museum opened in 1975. It was designed by Kunio Maekawa, one of the most important Japanese architects of the twentieth century. As a young man, Maekawa worked in Paris in the studio of Le Corbusier. Le Corbusier was the Swiss-French architect who shaped modern architecture with concrete, open plans and bold geometry. Maekawa took those ideas home and gave them a warmer, more Japanese character.

Look closely at the walls. The surface is not plain concrete. It is covered in tiles with a deep, earthy red-brown colour. Maekawa liked this kind of finish. Tiles stand up well to Tokyo's humid summers and heavy rain, and they age gently. In soft light, the walls feel almost like fired clay. In strong afternoon sun, they turn a rich orange. Notice how the colour changes when a cloud passes. The building looks different at every hour of the day.

Now look across the park and think about the neighbours. Maekawa also designed the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, the large concert hall near the park entrance by Ueno Station. That hall opened in the early 1960s. Close by stands the National Museum of Western Art, designed by Le Corbusier himself. That building is now part of a UNESCO World Heritage listing of Le Corbusier's work. So within a short walk, you can see the teacher's building and two buildings by his student.

The museum has a special role in Japanese art life. It is not only a place for famous travelling exhibitions. Many art associations hold their annual open exhibitions here. In these shows, members and amateur artists submit their work. Juries select pieces, and the halls fill with paintings, calligraphy, sculpture, photography and crafts. On some days, several of these group shows run at the same time on different floors. This is the second surprise for many visitors. The museum is a working stage for thousands of living artists.

If you visit during one of these open exhibitions, watch the people as well as the art. You may see an older couple standing in front of a painting by a friend. You may see a calligrapher studying the brushwork of a rival. Families come to find the work of a grandparent. The mood is often more personal than in a large international show. People talk quietly, take notes, and stay a long time with single pieces.

The museum also hosts major special exhibitions. Over the years, these have brought celebrated works from collections around the world to Tokyo. These shows can draw long queues, especially at weekends. Each exhibition has its own ticket and its own schedule, so check what is on before you arrive. Some galleries and public spaces in the building can be explored without entering a ticketed show. The lobby, the open areas and the plaza are worth a slow walk on their own.

The building went through a large renovation and reopened in 2012. The work updated the facilities and the galleries for a new century, but it kept the spirit of Maekawa's design. Inside, look for the long sightlines and the way light enters from above and from the sides. The rooms often feel calm and generous. Maekawa wanted people to move easily, to rest, and to meet each other. The museum was designed as a public living room as much as a gallery.

Take a moment to think about where you are standing in Ueno. This park became one of Tokyo's first public parks in the late nineteenth century. Today, it holds national museums, a zoo, temples, shrines, and a famous university of the arts nearby. In spring, crowds come to sit under the cherry blossoms. The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum is one part of this larger cultural landscape. Many visitors combine it with a museum next door or a walk around the pond.

Before you leave, go back into the sunken plaza and look up. From down here, the trees of the park frame the sky above the tiled walls. The city feels far away, even though one of Tokyo's busiest stations is only a few minutes' walk from here. This is the quiet trick of the design. The building lowers itself so that the park and the people stay at the centre.

As you climb the steps and return to the path, listen again. The crows are still calling. Footsteps still cross the gravel. Somewhere inside, an artist may be seeing their work on a public wall for the first time. That was the idea a coal merchant paid for, almost a century ago. Notice the red-brown walls once more as you walk away... and see how the colour has shifted since you arrived.