Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum

This museum works differently from its Ueno neighbours. There is no permanent collection gallery to walk round: every hall is filled by changing shows, so a visit depends entirely on what is on that week. Large ticketed special exhibitions run for a few months each. The open-call galleries are lent to art associations and school groups for their exhibitions of painting, calligraphy, sculpture and crafts, which give a broad picture of what artists across Japan, amateur and professional, are making. The museum opened on May 1, 1926 as Japan's first public art museum, paid for by a large donation from Sato Keitaro, a coal businessman from Kyushu. The present brick-red building by Maekawa Kunio dates from 1975 and was designed to sit low among the trees of the park. Use the main gate if you have a pushchair or wheelchair: it has an escalator and a lift, while the east gate has only stairs. Popular special shows can mean queues at the ticket desk, and some sell advance or timed tickets online, so check the exhibition's own page. Inside are two restaurants and a cafe.