Wow. It's huge.
Proposed during the halcyon optimism of the bubble era and constructed during a period of economic slowdown almost a generation later, the National Art Center, Tokyo has finally opened and is positioned to be the jewel in the crown of the Japanese government's quintet of national museums.
Designed by architect Kisho Kurokawa, 72, a founder of the free-form and avant-garde Metabolist movement of the 1960s, the 35-billion-yen NAC features an enormous, gently rippling facade made of glass panels. The atrium, which stretches the length of the building, is a wide, accommodating swath with 22 meter ceilings. A couple of restaurants and bars perch atop massive, inverted conical concrete constructions, behind which are stacked, with the space efficiency of a coin-locker system, 12 exhibition halls comprising a total floor space of 14,000 sq. meters, making this easily the largest art space in the country.