Tokyo’s most visited art museum announces 2025 expansion

Japan’s most-hyped, most-visited and most-Instagrammable art museum has announced an exciting large-scale expansion in 2025.

Tokyo’s teamLab Planets saw more than 2.5 million visitors walk through its kaleidoscopic immersive art spaces between April 2023 and March 2024, earning a Guinness World Record for the world’s most visited museum dedicated to a single group or artist.

The expansion, set to open on January 22, 2025, will increase the museum’s area by 1.5 times and welcome three new interactive areas; a multi-dimensional creative athletic space, a catching and collecting extinct forest and a ‘future park’ described as “a collaborative space for co-creation”.

The three new areas will differ from the museum’s existing water area and garden, as guests will be able to wear comfortable shoes as opposed to walking through barefoot.

“Spatial awareness is said to be correlated with innovation and creativity,” teamLab founder Toshiyuki Inoko said of the Athletic Forest.

“I grew up in a rural area and played in the mountains, but in today’s society and schools, the body is stationary. I think cities are surrounded too much by flat information such as books, TV and smartphone screens. That is why we created a three-dimensional space that excessively demands the physical body. It is a space where people can perceive art with their physical bodies.”

In addition, the venue located in Toyosu will welcome a new Sketch Factory for guests to create original products such as tin badges, hand towels, T-shirts and tote bags, from drawings they create within the immersive artwork spaces.

TOP TIPS

+ Buy tickets ahead of time, and when you do, book the earliest session possible and aim for a weekday to avoid inflated crowd numbers. Before I visited teamLab Planets January, friends advised me to avoid the afternoon and night time sessions due to some areas “smelling like feet” — which is understandable having had hundreds of people walk through the water-areas and art spaces barefoot throughout the day. But it’s not exactly the sensory experience one wants to pay for (or at least not I).

+ Avoid wearing a skirt because some parts of the exhibition has mirrored floors.

+ If you are wearing long pants, make sure they’re a style you can fold or scrunch up above your knees for the wet areas.

+ When taking photographs, remember there is a strict no-flash policy.

+ In full transparency, it was the most stimulating experience I’ve ever had. Go in knowing there’s a LOT going on, it’s not like typical art museums with a peaceful, relaxing atmosphere. It’s bonkers, but worth doing if you’re game.

+ Ticket prices vary seasonally. Visit www.teamlab.art/e/planets for more information.