ABOUT
About this spot
The Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum is a metropolitan museum in Shirokanedai, Minato City, which opened in 1983. Its main building is the former Prince Asaka residence, a house that Prince Yasuhiko Asaka built over about two years after his stay in Paris. It was completed in May 1933, and the family lived there until they left the imperial family in 1947. The land was granted to Princess Nobuko in 1921 and was a secondary residence of the Matsudaira family of Takamatsu in the early modern period. The interiors were strongly influenced by the 1925 Paris Exposition of decorative arts, the origin of Art Deco. The Imperial Household Ministry's building office handled the architecture, while the French interior designer Henri Rapin did the basic interior design of the main rooms. Works by the glass artist Rene Lalique are used widely, and Art Deco design appears throughout in the walls, lighting, etched-glass doors and radiator grilles. The ground floor served for receiving guests and the upper floor for private rooms, all in Western style. Neither Rapin nor Lalique visited Japan, and the work was coordinated by ship mail. After the war the house served as Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida's official residence, was sold to Seibu Railway in 1950, and later became the Shirokane Prince Guest House and the Prince Hotels headquarters. Tokyo Metropolitan Government acquired it in 1981 and opened it as a museum in 1983. It closed for renovation from 2011 and fully reopened on March 21, 2018. It was designated a Tokyo tangible cultural property in 1993, and in 2015 the main house, tea house, storehouse, garage and main gate were designated Important Cultural Properties. The garden has three areas: a lawn, a Japanese garden and a Western garden, with seasonal flowers and greenery. The Japanese garden holds the tea house Koka, completed in 1938. You can enter the garden alone, but during garden-only periods the main building and new building are closed. The two-story steel New Building won a 2015 Good Design Award. Exhibitions change, so check the official website if you want to see the interiors. Allow about an hour and a half to two hours for the exhibition and garden. It is about a 6-minute walk from Shirokanedai Station and about 7 minutes on foot from JR Meguro Station. The Institute for Nature Study, a nature park, lies next door and can be combined with a stroll.
Last updated October 26, 2026