With a new name, a new logo, and a new building, the Nezu Museum has transformed itself from a staid cultural institution into Tokyo’s latest “it” destination. Despite a world-class collection of Asian antiquities and a central location in the city’s fashionable Omotesando district, the old museum (the Nezu Institute of Fine Arts) and its traditional garden kept a fairly low profile. But thanks to the new building and landscape design by Kengo Kuma, the Nezu is impossible to miss. Topped with a dramatic tile roof, Kuma’s building stands apart from its commercial surroundings. Yet it greets pedestrians warmly with a live bamboo wall symbolizing the elegant blend of architecture and nature inside.

“One unique aspect of Japanese culture is the deep connection between buildings and gardens,” says Kuma. “I want to go back to that tradition.” This approach marked a departure from the Nezu’s previous home. Adjacent yet closed off from its carefully tended grounds, the privately owned museum encompassed a concrete exhibition hall plus four plaster-covered storehouses. The original concrete building opened in 1955 (with additions in 1964 and 1990), but the storage structures and garden date to the era before World War II when the Nezu family estate occupied the property. When roof leaks and poor climate control threatened the priceless artworks in the storehouses, the museum decided to replace them with a new exhibition structure and convert the old museum into offices and a state-of–the-art archive for the 7,000-piece collection.