Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum in Marunouchi

The red brick building holding this museum is a faithful reconstruction of Marunouchi’s very first office block, an 1890s design by the English architect Josiah Conder that once anchored a street known as London Block. Rebuilt in period detail and opened as an art museum, it now offers something rare in Tokyo: nineteenth century European art shown in rooms of matching scale and era, all of it two minutes from Tokyo Station.

Exhibitions and collection

Rather than a fixed permanent hang, the museum runs a rolling program of exhibitions built around art of the late nineteenth century, an area where its own holdings, including a significant body of work by Toulouse Lautrec, are particularly strong. The intimate scale is the point; you move through a series of domestic sized rooms rather than aircraft hangar galleries, and the art benefits from it.

Cafe 1894

The former banking hall on the ground floor is now Cafe 1894, a high ceilinged, wood panelled room that ranks among the more atmospheric places in central Tokyo for lunch or coffee. It fills quickly on weekends, and it is worth a look even if you only put your head in.

Getting there

The museum stands in the Marunouchi district a short walk from the Marunouchi south side of Tokyo Station. Yurakucho Station is similarly close, and Nijubashimae Station on the Chiyoda subway line is practically next door. The surrounding streets, with their brick facades and street trees, are some of the most pleasant walking in the city centre, with the Imperial Palace moat a few blocks west.

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