Tokyo National Museum Audio Guide

Tokyo National Museum: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Tokyo National Museum

   Welcome to Tokyo National Museum, known in Japanese as Tokyo Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan and affectionately nicknamed Tohaku. You are standing in Ueno Park, in Tokyo's Taito ward, at the oldest and largest museum in Japan. It collects, preserves and displays the cultural treasures of Japan and the wider East: works of art, archaeological finds and much more. The museum is not one building but a small campus. Five exhibition halls share the grounds: the Honkan, the Hyokeikan, the Toyokan, the Heiseikan and the Horyuji Homotsukan, along with a research and information center and other facilities. The museum is run by the National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, and its founding year is counted as 1872. Over the next few minutes I will take you through how this museum began in a Confucian shrine hall, how its buildings have survived fire, earthquake and changing tastes, and how to find your way through its galleries. Settle in, and let us begin at the very start.

2. 02

   Tokyo National Museum: A Museum Born in a Shrine Hall

   Our story begins not in Ueno but across town in Yushima. On the tenth of March, 1872, an exposition opened in the Taiseiden hall of the Yushima Seido and ran for 20 days. It was the first exposition organized by the Museum Bureau of the Ministry of Education, which had been set up the year before. That event gave rise to the Ministry of Education Museum, and the museum has counted that year as its founding ever since. The display was mostly made up of items intended for the Vienna World Exposition of 1873. Pictures from the period show glass cases packed into every corner, holding paintings and calligraphy, antiques and even stuffed animals and plants. It was part museum, part curiosity cabinet. The institution moved on, changing names and ministries several times. In 1876 a Satsuma-born official named Machida Hisanari was appointed head of the museum. He had worked hard in the early Meiji years to establish museums and protect cultural properties, and the museum regards him as its first director. A monument honoring him stands in the back garden. Later the museum came under the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce in 1881 and the Imperial Household Ministry in 1886, and it took on its home in Ueno Park, on the site of the former main residence of Kaneiji temple.

3. 03

   Tokyo National Museum: Buildings with Stories

   The buildings here tell the story of Japan's changing ideas about architecture. Start with the Hyokeikan, the oldest exhibition hall on the grounds. It opened in 1909 and was named in honor of the wedding of Crown Prince Yoshihito, the future Emperor Taisho. It is a fine example of Western-influenced late Meiji architecture and was designated an Important Cultural Property in 1978. Look beside the entrance and you will see a pair of lion statues, one with mouth open and one closed, the famous Aun pair. The Honkan has a more dramatic past. The original main building was badly damaged in the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, and exhibits were moved into the undamaged Hyokeikan. The museum closed until 1924, and for a time only the Hyokeikan could host displays. The collapse of a building once promoted as unmatched in solidity left many people disillusioned with the style it represented. The present Honkan opened in 1938, designed by Watanabe Jin, the architect behind the Hotel New Grand in Yokohama and the Dai-ichi Seimei building in Marunouchi. It came out of a public design competition that called for an Oriental style based on Japanese taste, in harmony with the art inside. It was designated an Important Cultural Property in 2001. Step into the grand entrance hall, a soaring space of marble and granite, and look for the lounge facing the back garden, with its decoration of mosaic tile.

4. 04

   Tokyo National Museum: Finding Your Way Through the Honkan

   The Honkan, also called the Japanese Gallery, is a good place to start. On the second floor, rooms one to ten are arranged as a single journey called the flow of Japanese art. You begin in room one, titled the dawn of Japanese art, and end in room 10 with ukiyo-e prints and costumes. Walk them in order and you get the broad sweep of Japanese art history in one loop. The first floor works differently. Rooms eleven to nineteen are arranged by genre. Here you will find sculpture, lacquerware, metalwork, swords and ceramics, along with ethnographic materials from the Ainu and the Ryukyu islands and historical materials. Room twenty is the museum shop, where original museum goods are sold, a pleasant place to end your visit. The museum is also a place of learning. The large auditorium in the Heiseikan hosts monthly lectures, and commemorative lectures are given when special exhibitions are held. Gallery talks, where specialists explain the works while you stand in front of them, take place about twice a month. Volunteer-led guided tours and workshops are offered from time to time, including programs for schools and families.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   Before you move on, remember that this museum's story stretches from a twenty-day exposition in a shrine hall in 1872 to the halls you see today. Along the way it passed through several ministries, changed its name more than once, lost its first main building to an earthquake and rebuilt it. As you wander the grounds, look for the small things: the Aun lions at the Hyokeikan, the mosaic tiles in the Honkan lounge, the monument to Machida Hisanari in the back garden. Each one links back to a chapter we have just walked through. And the park around you holds more. Ueno Park is also home to the National Museum of Western Art and the National Museum of Nature and Science. Whichever direction you choose next, there is plenty more to discover here, and the galleries are waiting.