National Museum of Western Art, Art museum in Ueno Park, Japan
The National Museum of Western Art is a square, reinforced-concrete museum in Ueno Park, Tokyo, designed by Le Corbusier with Kunio Maekawa, Junzo Sakakura and Takamasa Yoshizaka. Its galleries are raised on pilotis, and visitors ascend from the double-height 19th Century Hall to the upper galleries by a gently sloping ramp, not a spiral. A pyramidal skylight crossed by concrete beams lights the hall.
The museum was founded in 1959 after Japan and France negotiated the return of Kōjirō Matsukata's art collection. This collection had remained in France after the Second World War and formed the core of the new museum.
The collection begins with European paintings from the 14th century and moves through Renaissance, Baroque and French Impressionism. Many visitors spend time in the galleries with landscapes and portraits, where light falls through upper windows onto the canvases.
The museum opens from Tuesday to Sunday between 9:30 and 17:30, with extended hours until 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays. Mondays are closed, except when a public holiday falls on Monday, in which case the following weekday is the rest day.
Le Corbusier's modular design principle shows in the arrangement of columns, which structure the entire building at regular intervals. The museum's architecture belongs to the UNESCO World Heritage as part of Le Corbusier's architectural work.
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