Tokyo / Marunouchi & Tokyo Station / Museum
Idemitsu Museum of Arts
出光美術館 いでみつびじゅつかん
Ceramics, ink painting and the poet-monk Sengai, on the ninth floor overlooking the palace moat.
For a second visitArt · Quiet · Rainy day · Craft · View
Sazo Idemitsu, the oil company founder, collected Japanese and Chinese ceramics, the ink paintings of the Zen monk Sengai, and the calligraphy of the tea masters; his museum on the ninth floor of the Teigeki building shows it in rotation, in small rooms with a lounge whose windows look straight across the moat to the palace. It is one of the calmest museums in the city and the best place to see tea ceramics before you drink from one.
Don't miss
- Sengai's ink drawings — the circle, triangle and square, and his laughing figures
- The tea bowls, shown at eye level in cases you can walk around
- The lounge window over the moat, with free tea
- Tip
- Rotating exhibitions from the collection; check which is on, and expect it to be small and focused.
- Best time
- Weekday afternoon.
- Allow
- 60 min
- Station
- Hibiya (Hibiya / Chiyoda / Mita lines) or Yurakucho (JR)
- Official site — hours, prices, closures
- idemitsu-museum.or.jp · Map
In this area: Marunouchi & Tokyo Station
Tokyo Station Marunouchi Building東京駅丸の内駅舎
The 1914 red-brick station, its domes restored, with a gallery, a hotel and a city of food underneath.
45 min · Tokyo (JR / Shinkansen / Marunouchi line)
Imperial Palace East Gardens皇居東御苑
The site of Edo Castle — the great keep's stone base, the moats, and a garden open free to anyone who walks in.
90 min · Otemachi (five subway lines), exit C13a, straight to the Otemon gate
Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum三菱一号館美術館
Marunouchi's first office building of 1894, rebuilt brick by brick as a museum of nineteenth-century art.
75 min · Tokyo (Marunouchi south exit) or Nijubashimae (Chiyoda line)