The was one of the oldest contemporary art museums in Japan.[1] The museum was in the Kita-Shinagawa district, in the Shinagawa area of Tokyo.
The building was originally built as a private mansion designed by Jin Watanabe in 1938 for the grandfather of current museum president and international collector Toshio Hara.[2] Designed in a Bauhaus style, it is a rare example of early Shōwa period architecture . Following the war, it was used by the US and then served as the Embassy of the Philippines and the Embassy of Sri Lanka.[3] In 1979, it was converted to a museum. It underwent a major renovation in 2008, including a new lighting system designed by Shozo Toyohisa. In November 2018, the Foundation Arc-en-Ciel announced that it would be closing the Shinagawa museum in 2020, leaving the Hara Museum ARC in Gunma Prefecture as the foundation's only museum.[4]
The Shinagawa museum was actually closed on January 11, 2021.[5]
Its permanent collection had included works by Karel Appel, Alexander Calder, Buckminster Fuller, Yves Klein, Yayoi Kusama, Surasi Kusolwong, Aiko Miyawaki, Yasumasa Morimura, Daisuke Nakayama, Maruyama Ōkyo, Jackson Pollock, Jean-Pierre Raynaud, George Rickey, Mark Rothko, Cindy Sherman, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Jason Teraoka, Zhou Tiehai, Lee U-Fan, Andy Warhol, and Miwa Yanagi.
Its street address was: 4-7-25 Kita-Shinagawa, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo 140-0001, Japan.