[Update: The Tokyo-Edo Museum will reopen mid-2025] This excellent museum is devoted to the history of Tokyo, formerly known as Edo. Entering the museum via escalator from the third-floor plaza below is an inspiring experience - the massive...

After a three-year hiatus for renovation work, Tokyo's premier contemporary-art museum finally reopened in March 2019, incidentally giving a boost to the handful of small independent galleries that have gathered in the neighborhood. The museum's...

Another marquee project from renowned architect Kenzo Tange, the United Nations University headquarters building occupies a prominent location in Aoyama, across the street from Aoyama Gakuin University. It was completed in 1992.

This stunning museum building was designed by architect Kengo Kuma and opened in 2009. If you have time to spare, the museum specializes in pre-modern art from Japan, China, and other Asian countries, with some 7000 items including painting and sculpture, calligraphy, ceramics and lacquerware. The museum cafe is also worth a stop, and it looks out onto a beautiful wooded garden which you can stroll through after taking in the exhibition.

Designed by architect Kenzo Tange and completed in 1996, the Fuji TV building has become a landmark of the Odaiba area thanks to its unusual silhouette, featuring a giant floating sphere and a skeletal central section of pedestrian bridges and columns. The silver-titanium sphere is set at a height of around 100 meters, and it houses a small observation deck offering an excellent view of the Tokyo Bay waterfront area and Rainbow Bridge. Other than the view, though, there's not too much to see here - a few TV show sets and props on the fifth floor, and souvenirs galore on the first and seventh floors.

The Gallery of Horyuji Treasures is part of Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park. It houses more than 300 historical artifacts, mainly from the seventh and eighth centuries, which were donated to the Imperial Household by Horyuji Temple in Nara in...

Completed in January 2001, the Komaba Campus II buliding of Tokyo University is the work of architect Hiroshi Hara, who was also responsible for the Umeda Sky Building in Osaka and Kyoto Station. The massive building is a few city blocks in length,...

This is the only building in Japan designed by renowned French architect Le Corbusier. The three-story reinforced-concrete structure was finished in 1959, based on detailed drawings by three Japanese apprentices of Le Corbusier's - Kunio Maekawa, Junzo Sakakura and Takamasa Yoshizaka. The new wing was completed in 1979 and was designed by Maekawa Kunio Associates.

Devoted to the work of Japan's most famous woodblock artist, the five-story Hokusai museum was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kazuyo Sejima and her firm SANAA, and was completed in November 2016. The building is clad in aluminum, with glass-enclosed tunnel-like spaces on street level that allow you to walk under the building in a couple of different directions as you peer through the glass walls at the different ground-floor spaces. The building It is located conveniently close to the Tokyo-Edo Museum, and the two museums can be easily combined in one trip.

Completed in 1982, this was the first museum building designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa, who was also responsible for the Nakagin Capsule Tower and the National Art Center, Tokyo. A lattice-like structure frames the outer perimeter of the...

This specialized museum houses thousands and thousands of dolls. The collection starts off with a huge display of traditional dolls and human figures from more than 100 countries around the world. Japan is represented by numerous styles such as...