One of The World Heritages in Ueno Onshi Park “National Museum of Western Art”

‘Ueno Onshi Park’, has many cultural facilities such as the Ueno Zoo, Tokyo National Museum and the International Library of Children’s Literature. This time, we’re going to introduce the architectural beauty of one of them, the National Museum of Western Art. (国立西洋美術館) If people rarely go to museums, please stop by just to see the appearance when visiting the park.

In the early 1900s, the first president of Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., Kojiro Matsukawa (松方幸次郎) stood up to increase the opportunity for underprivileged Japanese art students who had never had a chance to see high-quality Western paintings. To improve the situation, it seems that he began to collect Western paintings passionately such as he purchased directly from the Impressionist master, Monet. Although his collection was scattered due to the Great Depression and war, Shigeru Yoshida, then prime minister of Japan, requested the French government to return about 400 Matukata’s collections to Japan after World War Ⅱ, which were confiscated by the government. And National Museum of Western Art was built in 1959 as a place to store them.

It was designed by one of the three great masters of modern architecture, ‘Le Corbusier’. His design is characterized by an atrium space consisting only of pillars called ‘Piloti’ and the use of natural light and had a great influence on the architecture of the world. It’s the only museum where you can see his architecture in Japan! In addition, it’s also the point that the museum was designed to be expanded on the outer wall when the works of art increase. This concept was highly evaluated, and it was registered as a World Cultural Heritage Site in 2016 along with 17 works in 7 countries in Europe and South America. In addition, the slope that goes up in a spiral from the main hall is also one of the features. Have fun with the precious building along with the works of art on display.