Tokyo National Museum

The Tokyo National Museum is defined by its massive, tiled-roof Honkan building, which sits within a sprawling campus in Ueno Park. As the oldest national museum in Japan, it originated in eighteen seventy-two when the government staged an exhibition of imperial artwork and scientific specimens at the Yushima Seido Confucian temple. This early display, featuring rare glass cases, drew over one hundred and fifty thousand visitors and established the foundation for a permanent institution.