Roppongi: the art triangle
Three museums, two towers, one Tadao Ando shed, and a giant bronze spider. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Roppongi Hills — Mori Tower and Maman
Start under Louise Bourgeois's *Maman*, the nine-metre bronze spider crouched at the foot of the tower. Go up to the Tokyo City View observation deck if the sky is clear — Fuji sits on the western horizon on a good afternoon.

2. Mori Art Museum
On the 53rd floor of the tower, which is the right place for it — contemporary shows, often pan-Asian, and the ticket usually folds in the city view. The least stuffy big museum in Tokyo.

3. The National Art Center, Tokyo
Kisho Kurokawa's 2007 building is the reason to come even if the shows don't grab you — a glass wave of a facade, inverted concrete cones holding cafés aloft inside. No permanent collection; it's all visiting exhibitions, so check what's on.

4. 21_21 Design Sight
Tadao Ando's half-buried steel-and-concrete shed in the Midtown garden, the roof folded from a single sheet like a paper plane. Design-only shows, tightly curated. Small; an hour is plenty.

5. Suntory Museum of Art
In Tokyo Midtown, Kengo Kuma's interior in pale wood and paper — Japanese applied arts, lacquer and glass and ceramics, shown with more calm than the towers outside. The garden and pond are free to sit in either way.

6. Nogizaka
Slip out the north edge of Midtown and the Chiyoda line at Nogizaka takes you on. Quieter exit than the Roppongi scrum, and you pass the back of the National Art Center on the way.

Roppongi: the art triangle