After being closed for two years for major renovations, Tokyo's best-known photography museum in Tokyo's fashionable Ebisu neighborhood reopened on Sept. 3, just in time to celebrate its 20-year anniversary. The venerable facility now boasts a new look, improved exhibition spaces and a new name in English: the Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, or TOP Museum for short.
When it opened in 1995, the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (as it was previously known in English) was the first public institution in Japan devoted entirely to photographic art. Although the English name has been changed to better reflect the museum's mission to handle all forms of photographic media, its Japanese title remains the same: Tokyo-to Shashin Bijutsukan.
The museum's original mandate was to not only collect, preserve and display photographs, but also to conduct research, encourage artists and give the public more opportunities to enjoy photographs and moving images. At the time, it was almost unheard of for an art museum in Japan to exhibit photographs, so the museum was blazing a trail.