Hijiyama Park

This guide to Hijiyama Park in Hiroshima centers on the museum at its summit, whose walls climb from rough stone to smooth tile to bare aluminum, a sequence its architect built on purpose. It follows Kisho Kurokawa, the loudest voice in Japan's Metabolism movement, which argued buildings should grow and adapt like living organisms, and traces how this became the first public museum in Japan devoted purely to contemporary art when it opened on May 3, 1989. You'll also hear about the sculpture inside, from Henry Moore to a Warhol Marilyn to Frank Stella, sitting alongside Japanese artists. Walk the climbing wall of materials on your way in and see where the sequence leads.