Tokyo National Museum Honkan
The flagship gallery of Japan’s oldest museum – a tiled imperial roof riding on a modern concrete body, the defining monument of the Imperial Crown style.
At a glance
- Type
- Museum main hall
- Period
- 1932-1938
- Style
- Imperial Crown Style (teikan yoshiki)
- Location
- Ueno Park, Tokyo, Japan
- Coordinates
- 35.7188, 139.7765
- Architect
- Jin Watanabe
Overview
The Honkan (Japanese Gallery) of the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park is the principal monument of the Imperial Crown style – the interwar Japanese answer to both Western historicism and the International Style, placing traditional tiled roofs on modern steel-and-concrete bodies. Jin Watanabe won the 1931 competition whose brief demanded a design based on Japanese taste; the building opened in 1938.
History
The museum, founded 1872, lost its Conder-designed Victorian main hall to the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. The replacement Honkan was funded by public subscription as a symbol of national culture in an era of rising nationalism – the style itself became politically charged, exported to Japanese-occupied territories. After the war the building was reassessed on its merits and designated an Important Cultural Property in 2001.
Architecture and Design
A symmetrical two-storey concrete palace carries a great hipped roof of green-glazed tiles with imperial ridge ornaments; the entrance hall rises through marble stairs beneath coffered ceilings blending Japanese joinery motifs with Deco geometry. Twenty-five galleries trace Japanese art from Jomon pottery to Edo painting along a chronological circuit.
Cultural significance
The Honkan houses the world’s finest collection of Japanese art – 89 National Treasures including Heian sutras, samurai swords, and Sharaku prints – inside a building that is itself the textbook example of Japan’s interwar search for an architectural identity between tradition and modernity.
Visiting today
Open Tuesday to Sunday; the Honkan anchors a campus including the Heiseikan, the Gallery of Horyuji Treasures, and the Hyokeikan. Allow a half day; the garden behind opens in spring and autumn.
Getting there
Ten minutes on foot from JR Ueno station through Ueno Park, past the National Museum of Western Art (Le Corbusier, UNESCO-listed).
Sources and resources
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