Wider World by CS

Cool and cultured: 5 arty Tokyo chill-outs

No more seasonal excuses, as we highlight the best of the capital's cooling culture spots

By Andrew Pothecary 9 August, 2012

A perfect example of how chill it's possible to get in Tokyo this summer.

We’ve said it before -- there’s no escaping the fact that a Tokyo summer can be HOT.

Weeks of 35 C and above, saturation humidity and slump-under-the-energy-hungry air-con hot.

Generally, uncool.

But we can’t sit by the cooler all summer, especially if there isn’t the juice to go round. Power outages are a real concern again in this second post-Fukushima summer.

With that in mind, we heartily recommend boosting your culture quotient while chilling out at these galleries, museums and art exhibits, all guaranteed to frame summer in an entirely more-favorable -- and more comfortable -- light.

21_21 Design Sight

21_21 has such a low heat profile, we'd call it invisible.

“Tokyo Midtown Loves Summer,” say the promotional posters this year. But there’s more than that to the swanky Tokyo shopping district.

In fact, Midtown has established itself as a year-round attraction in its five years of existence. Christmas illumination events, design festivals and art exhibitions are regularly held in and around its stores, halls and grounds.

At one edge of its park is the curiously named 21_21 Design Sight, a gallery with a revolving roster of contemporary arts and culture.

Built mostly below ground in cooling Tadao Ando concrete (yes, it’s another Ando building, the concrete master of Japan), 21_21 is a modern gallery worth an afternoon of anyone’s time, while the park that surrounds both it and the rest of Midtown provides an added summer attraction.

A mere couple of hundred meters from Roppongi crossing, you can walk on grass, be next to running water, relax in terrace cafés and, more than likely, catch one of the regularly organized outdoor events like the current Tohoku art exhibition.

21_21 Design Sight, 9-7-6 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo, +81 (0) 3 3475 2121; open 11 a.m.-8 p.m., closed Tuesday and holidays; www.2121designsight.jp

More on CNN: 5 cool Tokyo summer oases

Fuchu Art Museum

Fuchu Art Museum: a café in a gallery in a forest in a park in a suburb in Tokyo.

Unlike the bang-in-the-center 21_21, Fuchu Art Museum is well out of deepest Tokyo, although it’s still far from inaccessible, at 30 minutes from Shibuya.

It’s in the bustling suburb of Fuchu and includes plenty of green space, regular events, art demonstrations and an outdoor café.

While the menu at the café could do with a little more imagination to match the museum’s contents, the upside is that it’s inside Fuchu no Mori Koen (Fuchu Forest Park).

That means visitors can enjoy the shade of trees and the sounds of summer in the city.

For many, the long hot season necessitates finding things for kids to do, so the wide-open spaces of Fuchu no Mori Koen are one attraction, but the Art Museum itself is also child-friendly.

Nowhere mentioned here is not, of course, but Fuchu often has specifically child-oriented elements in the exhibitions themselves.

So, that could mean killing three birds with one stone -- culture for the adults, culture for the children and summer sun and cooling trees in the park.

Fuchu Art Museum, Sengen-cho 1-3, Fuchu-shi, Tokyo, +81 (0) 42 336 3371; open 10 a.m.-5 p.m., closed Monday, the day after a public holiday and at New Year; www.city.fuchu.tokyo.jp

Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum

"Stand back people -- this concrete won't cool itself."

Although in impressive grounds and associated with the major Edo-Tokyo Museum in central Tokyo, this is a surprisingly undersold option for culture vultures.

Out to the west of the capital on the Chuo line (but only 30 minutes or so from Shinjuku) it features a range of historical, mostly Meiji-era, Japanese buildings.

These have either been recreated in the park or moved from their original sites and reassembled here.

Buildings range from traditional homes (some of notable inhabitants) to a traditional sento public bath and even a koban, or police box, complete with a bedroom for sleepy Edo cops.

At Edo-Tokyo, you get compact access to Japan’s renowned architectural legacy with the benefit of a lot of cooling greenery all around.

Tokyo is an ever-changing, always-rebuilding city, so while you might come across similar relics still dotted around different districts, the smart option is to treat yourself to a single collection without the need to pound the broiling streets in search of history.

Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum, 3-7-1 Sakuracho, Koganei, Tokyo, +81 (0) 42 388 3300; open April-September 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., October-March 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., closed Monday, the day after a public holiday and at New Year; tatemonoen.jp