Roppongi's redemption arc — from the city's most notorious nightlife district, known primarily for expat bars and late-night chaos, to a serious art destination anchored by three major museums — is one of Tokyo's more improbable urban transformations. The Mori Art Museum on the 53rd floor of Roppongi Hills stages contemporary exhibitions of international caliber and includes the observation deck that provides the best night view in the city. The National Art Center Tokyo, Kisho Kurokawa's undulating glass wave of a building, hosts rotating exhibitions in the largest gallery space in Japan.
The Suntory Museum of Art focuses on Japanese craft and design with exhibitions that reveal the aesthetic principles underpinning everything from ceramics to textiles. Between the museums, Roppongi Hills and Tokyo Midtown function as vertical cities — shopping, dining, offices, hotels, and public gardens layered into complexes that keep you off the street and in the ecosystem. The nightlife has not disappeared but has been pushed to the margins, and the tension between the art triangle's daytime sophistication and the remaining bars' nocturnal energy gives the district a split personality that is, in its way, authentically Tokyo.