Tokyo's Museums: Where Science Meets Art

Tokyo takes its museums seriously. Not in the hushed, slightly austere way some cities do — but with a genuine conviction that culture, science, and art should be as accessible and alive as everything else the city does well.

Two museums sit at opposite ends of the spectrum, and between them they tell you something important about what makes Tokyo exceptional.

Miraikan — The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation sits out in Odaiba, Tokyo's artificial island in the bay, and it earns the journey. The name translates as 'hall of the future,' and the museum delivers on that entirely. The centrepiece is the Geo-Cosmos — a six-metre spherical LED globe suspended in the atrium, displaying real-time satellite data of the Earth's weather, oceans, and atmosphere in extraordinary detail. You can stand beneath it for longer than you expect to.

Beyond that, there are interactive robotics exhibits, a walk-through model of the International Space Station, demonstrations of Honda's ASIMO robot, and displays covering everything from deep-sea exploration to how the internet works — the last of which is explained, brilliantly, through a giant physical maze of black and white balls. It's a museum that functions as a working research lab, and that sense of active inquiry runs through the whole building. Kids love it. Adults do too, if they're honest.

Mori Art Museum operates on a completely different register. Perched on the 53rd floor of Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, it's one of the highest contemporary art museums in the world, and the views alone — Tokyo spread out in every direction — would make the trip worthwhile. The museum itself has hosted some of the most important contemporary exhibitions in Asia since opening in 2003, with past shows featuring Yayoi Kusama, Ai Weiwei, and Anish Kapoor. Its triennial Roppongi Crossing series is the best snapshot of where Japanese contemporary art is at any given moment.