Private Ueno Park Architecture Walking Tour
Description
Ueno Park known for its beautiful cherry blossoms is an important cultural and art center in Tokyo. It is also home to many museums with great exhibitions, concert halls, educational institutions, and a zoo and always bustling with people. Don't just walk by without checking out the great architecture there as it is a wonderful place to see the great works from the early 1900 till recently designed by great architects such as Le Corbusier, Kunio Maekawa, Tadao Ando, and Yoshio Taniguchi. We will navigate you through these witnesses of the history of relaxing Ueno park.
Tour Options
Itinerary
This Le Corbusier-designed museum was listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site for its modern architectural value in 2016. It is housing the western paintings and sculptures from pre 18th - 20th century. We would explain how his concept adapted to the actual work and find out why this museum is so special.
Tokyo Bunka Kaikan designed by Kunio Maekawa, one of three local apprentices of Le Corbusier. Tokyo Bunka Kaikan is located just opposite to Le Corbusier’s museum as if both buildings were talking each other.
This is the oldest building in the Ueno park, constructed in 1906, the International Library of Children’s Literature. You can also observe its great preservation and renovation work as well as newly built stunning arch-shaped annex building done by Tadao Ando.
We will stop at Tokyo National Museum admiring four great architectural works (Hyokei-kan, Hon-kan, Toyo-kan and Gallery of Horyuji Treasure) reflecting historical background of each era between 1908 to 1999. If you have time, please appreciate their collections of National Treasure after the tour!
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Travelers should have at least a moderate level of physical fitness
Reviews(8)
Our guide Yuki was fantastic - knowledgeable, thorough, and flexible to adapt to our interests. The tour was a great combination of old and new Tokyo - and a nice mix of art, architecture, history, and culture.
Ueno is a neighborhood in Tokyo, known for the park, the zoo, the street trade. It is in the central area of the city being a well-moving neighborhood. I've been to this park, the zoo, etc. I really like it. I recommend spending a day in this neighborhood.
The tour of the buildings (museums and library) in Ueno park was very interesting. Our guide was kind, helpful, informative. An introduction to Japanese architects. Combing that with our independent tour of the museums afterwards made it a whole day outing.
Great introduction to Tokio from Yuki Great guide knowing a lot about Japan. Interesting Ueno tour. Great park and architecture
I loved my tour with Mari. Mari was a warm and funny guide, and we had fun for the whole 2 hour tour. Mari is an experienced guide and is knowledgeable and passionate about the architecture of Ueno.
Our tour guide was fabulous - she had laminated tour materials that showed key people, concepts, dates to help aid the transfer of information during the tour. We went to 4 different places in the Ueno park, and our favorite was the Children's Literature Museum. The tour guide pointed out small architectural elements that would have gone un-noticed otherwise. We then walked around the museums afterwards ourselves.
My tour was very informative and well thought-out. The guide spoke excellent English and came well-prepared. It was very focused on the architecture and not on the collections the museums housed, so it isn't an art or artifact exploration.
Dear Pam, Thank you so much for giving such a nice review. It was our pleasure to have guided you around Ueno Park, full of representative structures in modern Japan. I hope you had enjoyed the tour and appreciated the arts in the museums later. Thanks for coming to Ueno Park and joining our architecture tour! Aki
One of the highlights of our trip to Tokyo was the architecture tour of Ueno Park with Showcase Architecture Tours! It was a private tour with our group of four including my daughter, who is an architect. Aki was our guide and we toured several museums and the performing arts center. He was an excellent guide and provided lots of information about the history and unique features of each building. It was very interesting and informative. I would highly recommend Showcase Architecture tours and Aki, our guide!
Thank you very much for your good comment!! Ueno park is the best area to follow ever-changing and turbulent history of Tokyo(Japan) through observing different architectural styles of each period. It was our great pleasure to have you join the tour with Aki!! Arigato-