MOMAT (National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo)

Few places in Tokyo let you follow a century of Japanese art in one walk. The MOMAT Collection, the permanent display, runs from the fourth floor down to the second and changes its roughly 200 works each period, drawn from more than 14,000 pieces: Japanese-style painting, Western-style oils, prints, sculpture, photography and video. Important Cultural Properties come out in rotation, among them Kishida Ryusei's Road Cut Through a Hill of 1915, so a particular favourite may not be on the wall the day you come. Start at the top. The fourth-floor rest area, the Room with a View, looks over the trees of the Imperial Palace towards the Marunouchi towers. The museum opened in Kyobashi in 1952 as Japan's first national art museum and moved in 1969 into this building by Taniguchi Yoshiro, across the road from the palace moat. Collection admission is 500 yen for adults; check the official site for the current fee. Special exhibitions cost extra, and their ticket also covers the collection on the same day. Friday and Saturday evenings, open until 20:00, suit a visit after work.