Ninety seconds on The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto
Maki Fumihiko's granite and glass museum gives you twentieth-century art from Kyoto and Kansai, with the great red torii of Heian Shrine visible from its fourth-floor lobby. The displays change about five times a year, so a return visit shows you different works.
Look first at the walls. The outside is a grid of Portuguese granite around a symmetrical front, drawn from the de Stijl painting of Piet Mondrian, and it stays low because nothing near Heian Shrine may stand taller than the shrine's grand torii.
Inside, two kinds of glass let the light in, one clear and one milky white, and the effect is one of the building's highlights. The Pritzker Prize-winning architect Maki Fumihiko finished the building in 1986.
The collection holds about 13,000 works, gathered with an eye on Kyoto and the Kansai region. Its strengths are nihonga, or Japanese-style painting, and crafts, alongside sculpture.
The museum also holds some 1,050 photographs assembled by a Chicago couple, the Gilberts, and about 260 by Nojima Yasuzo. They appear in rotation, so check the Collection Gallery listing if you come for them.
Free lockers sit on the ground floor beside the ticket desk, information, the shop and the café, so start there. Inside the doors, a white marble hall and a stair lit by skylights lead up to the galleries.
Choose your ticket before you climb. A special exhibition, normally on the third floor, includes entry to the Collection Gallery, while a ticket for the Collection Gallery alone is sold only at that gallery.
The collection fills the fourth floor, with a Reference Corner beside it. Allow about an hour for that floor, and longer with a special exhibition. The Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art is nearby, so the two make one Okazaki morning.
On a Friday, come after 18:00, when a cheaper night rate applies. Photography is allowed for only part of the collection display, so read the signs in each room before you raise a camera. An audio guide covers the Collection Gallery and some special exhibitions.
The shop and the glass-walled café need no ticket, and the café looks over the Lake Biwa Canal, so it works as a stop on a walk round Okazaki. In cherry blossom season, come at opening, before the canal bank outside fills. The lifts have English voice guidance, and wheelchairs are available for visitors to use.
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