Tokyo National Museum, National museum in Ueno-kōen, Taitō-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo National Museum is a national museum in Ueno-kōen, Japan, that holds over 110,000 objects from Japan, China, and Korea. The main building and several side halls stand around a courtyard with gardens and walkways.
The place opened in 1872 during the Meiji period as the first national museum in Japan. The current main building was completed in 1938 to a design by Jin Watanabe in the Imperial Crown style.
The Honkan's second-floor rooms are arranged in a loop around the central staircase, with a section on tea utensils where ceramic bowls and iron kettles are set out as they were used in tea gatherings. Other rooms show Noh and Kabuki costumes and samurai armour. The museum's name changed several times: Imperial Museum in 1888, Tokyo Imperial Household Museum in 1900, National Museum in 1947, and Tokyo National Museum in 2001.
The entrance halls sit near Ueno subway station and are easy to reach on flat paths. Audio guides in several languages help visitors move through the different buildings.
The Honkan building facade mixes traditional Japanese roof shapes with western stone walls and columns. Watanabe designed this style in the 1930s as a response to the full adoption of European building forms.
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