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The National Museum of Modern Art
The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo (MOMAT) opened in 1952 as Japan's first national art museum. Its collection of roughly 14,000 works, including Important Cultural Properties, is shown in rotation across twelve galleries in Kitanomaru Park.
Opened in 1952 as Japan's first national art museum, MOMAT does something few museums attempt: it tells one story, in order, and rehangs it several times a year. The collection galleries occupy twelve rooms across three floors, and you walk them from the top down, starting in the early twentieth century and ending in the contemporary. Because the display is drawn from roughly 14,000 works and rotated, the museum rewards return visits — and the rotation includes pieces designated Important Cultural Properties. The building sits in Kitanomaru Park, on the northern side of the Imperial Palace grounds, so the visit naturally attaches to a walk along the moat.
Why it stays quiet
Foreign visitors to Tokyo overwhelmingly choose the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno for classical art, or teamLab for spectacle. MOMAT covers the century in between, which almost nobody's itinerary has a slot for — so its galleries stay calm on weekday afternoons even though it is a ten-minute ride from Tokyo Station.
Background & history
MOMAT was founded in 1952, in the years immediately after the war, as the first national art museum in Japan — its remit was the art of the modern era rather than the classical holdings already covered by the national museums. The collection has grown to around 14,000 works spanning the twentieth century to the present, and the museum now sits in Kitanomaru Park, on ground that was part of the Edo Castle complex.
What to look for — in walking order
- The collection galleries
- twelve rooms walked top-down from the early 1900s to the contemporary, rehung several times a year
- Important Cultural Property works
- designated pieces of modern Japanese art appear in the rotation rather than in a separate treasure room
- A Room With A View
- a rest space on the fourth floor looking out over the Imperial Palace moat and the city beyond
- Kitanomaru Park outside
- the wooded park on the palace's north side, good for a walk before or after
How to enjoy it
Go top-down and do not skip the fourth-floor viewing room — the moat framed in a museum window is one of the better quiet views in central Tokyo. Weekday afternoons are the calmest. Check momat.go.jp first: the collection rehang and the special exhibition schedule mean the museum closes for installation periods, and the current hang determines what you actually see. Combine it with a walk through Kitanomaru Park to Kudanshita, or south along the moat to the Imperial Palace East Gardens.
How to actually get there
- Tokyo Stn → Otemachi Stn (walk) → Takebashi Stn (Tokyo Metro Tozai Line, 1 stop, ~2 min).
- Exit 1b, walk about 3 minutes along the moat to the museum entrance.
- Take the lift to the top collection floor and work downward through the twelve rooms.
- Metro Tozai Line to Takebashi
- From Tokyo Stn, walk to Otemachi Stn and take the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line one stop to Takebashi Stn (~2 min). Leave by exit 1b and walk about 3 minutes along the moat; the museum is on your right. Total about 10 minutes. Trains run every few minutes.
- Back via Takebashi, or walk out through Kitanomaru Park
- Return to Takebashi Station for the Tozai Line, or walk north through Kitanomaru Park (~15 min) to Kudanshita Station for the Hanzomon, Tozai and Shinjuku lines. Either route is flat.
Before you go
- Cash
- The collection galleries have a modest admission; special exhibitions are ticketed separately, and a combined ticket is usually offered. Cards and IC payment are accepted at the desk. There is a museum café and shop on the ground floor.
- Closing days
- Closed on Mondays (or the following day when Monday is a public holiday) and over the New Year period, and between exhibition installations — check the calendar on momat.go.jp before you go. Large bags go in the lockers.
- Another way
- Kudanshita Station (Hanzomon / Tozai / Toei Shinjuku lines) is about a 15-minute walk through Kitanomaru Park and works better if you are coming from the Shinjuku direction.
- After you get off
- From Takebashi Station exit 1b, the moat is on your left and the museum entrance is about 3 minutes' walk on the right, at the edge of Kitanomaru Park.