National Museum of Western Art
Le Corbusier · Tokyo, Japan · 1959
Le Corbusier's only completed building in Japan is organized around his concept of a 'museum of unlimited growth.' A square, pilotis-raised volume wraps galleries around a central top-lit hall, while the modular proportions and exposed concrete reveal the architect's mature postwar language. The museum is especially valuable for understanding how Corbusier's ideas were absorbed by the generation of Japanese architects who followed him.