The art in Roppongi is stacked vertically and the architecture is the other half of the show. Three kilometres, an afternoon, and three museums — but the buildings holding them are as much the point as anything hung inside.
Start under Maman, Louise Bourgeois's bronze spider at the foot of the Mori Tower, then go straight up: the Mori Art Museum sits on the 53rd floor, and the ticket usually throws in the Tokyo City View, where Fuji turns up on the western skyline on a clear day. Down and west to the National Art Center, Kisho Kurokawa's glass wave with no permanent collection of its own — check what's showing before you commit. Then across to Tokyo Midtown for the two quiet ones: Tadao Ando's half-buried 21_21 Design Sight, its roof folded like a paper plane, and the Suntory Museum of Art, Kengo Kuma's pale-wood rooms of lacquer and glass.
You don't have to go into all three; pick two and sit in the Midtown garden between them. End at Nogizaka — the calmer exit, the Chiyoda line, and the back of the Kurokawa building on your way out.
