In Decemeber 2025, I travelled to Japan. It was a fairly quick trip and a decision I feel really good about for a number of reasons– I am happy I went, to the utmost. However, there was one building that I saw and am thinking of now, I took a dozen photos of it, but did not go inside, to my current chagrin. Here is why.
While in Tokyo, I am thinking back now about what I saw, while there I waited by a museum early one morning in Ueno Park. I was up and out early, waiting for a Museum of Nature and Science, and the Tokyo National Museum to open, but there was this other one that caught my eye. It is the Museum of Western Art. I was not travelling in Japan to learn about the West, obviously, but sometimes that is what happens. You can learn about one culture by visiting another culture, at times. But I was struck by the modern concrete brutalism of this museum and the statuary in the entryway were clearly by Rodin: The Thinker, Burghers of Calais and the Gates of Hell were recognizable. These are hard to miss, and actually overshadowed the building by Corbusier that they adorned.
What I am doing my best to share with you most right now is, I happened to stand outside, my second Le Corbusier building and did not know it at the time. My first was the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard, in Cambridge, Mass. That is his only building in the United States, and the Museum of Western Art in question is his only building in Japan.
Le Corbusier was instilled in my imagination in college. Early on in architecture school in the 1990s, one of my professors was from India and his father worked directly with Le Corbusier on his buildings there. This prof wrote books about Le Corbusier and taught us a lot about his work. Very memorable, and the work stands out among all in the 20th century. I would admit now, that Le Corbusier was my first favorite architect, and I know most of his work well from readings, but somehow, I missed this one’s attribution to him, and will regret not going inside. Until my next trip to Tokyo.
I am thinking now about studying the Museum of Western Art’s plans and walkthroughs, as the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts was very experiential and about movement and circulation, I have a hunch this one is concerned with that too, but right now, I do not learn more about what I missed out on and do not want to deepen my chagrin.
drdrr.work 