Toyosu, Tokyo, Japan

teamLab Planets TOKYOShoes off at the door, then water underfoot

teamLab Planets sits on reclaimed ground by the water in Toyosu, in eastern Tokyo. You go in barefoot and move through the rooms in one direction: water first, then mirrored floors, then a garden, an athletics forest and an open-air section. The works change as people move through them.

It stands on new landfill by the water in Koto ward, Toyosu. Three minutes on foot from exit 1A at Shin-Toyosu Station. You stow your bag and take your shoes off at the entrance.

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PlaceToyosu, Tokyo

TypeImmersive art

SuitsAnyone with an afternoon

StayHalf a day

Your body goes in before your eyes do

Toyosu, Tokyo, Japan — Immersive art museum.

You take your shoes off first. The locker room at the entrance takes you down to socks, and the socks come off before the water section. The first thing that happens inside is not looking; it is your feet reading the temperature of the water and the give of the floor beneath them.

The works avoid you. The koi choose their route according to the people standing in the water, and if one collides with you it breaks apart into a flower. Where you stand changes what the room does, so there is no correct position to watch from.

It is for a few spare hours in Tokyo, and for people who do not want to know anything about art first or to stand still in front of it. If you would rather keep your shoes on and look at things from a fixed spot, this will not be your kind of afternoon.

Two people standing in shallow water, ribbons of coloured light sliding across the surface around their legs. — Two people standing in shallow water, light moving

A single visitor standing among vertical strips of light, the beams pale and continuous around the body. — Vertical bands of light around a single figure

Visitors lying on the floor looking up, petals falling through the air and light pooling on their clothes.

Two flower rooms, used differently

One room you walk through standing up, flowers hanging from above and a shallow layer of water underfoot. The other asks you to lie down, with petals falling from the ceiling and light landing on your body. They sit in the same building, a few minutes apart, and they ask for opposite behaviour.

Two people knee-deep in water looking upward at animals drifting through a dark forest space.

Animals that vanish when caught

In one forest, animals that are already extinct swim through the air. Children hold up phones to catch them, and whatever is caught stays on that person's own screen. It is a chasing game played inside a picture rather than a display read from a label.

A stone staircase with one tread glowing under a visitor's shoe, every other step still dark.

Light that only appears underfoot

On one stretch of stone steps, each tread lights as a foot lands on it. Next door, a room of spheres shifts colour in response to movement, with twelve colours running across the walls. Both only work if someone is standing on them, which is the argument for going in with other people around.

A room filled with coloured spheres on floor and walls, streaks of light running between them.

Route

The half day in Toyosu

Give it the half day you would spend in Toyosu and Odaiba. Go to the market in the morning and come in during the afternoon, at the timed slot you booked. The visit is short, but changing, storing bags and queuing for your slot all come out of the same block of hours.

Half a day, timed to the slot

Book a slot, arrive early enough to change and store your bag, and treat the rest of the half day as market and waterfront.

Stay

Allow half a day. Changing clothes, storing bags and queuing for your timed slot all count against that, not against the visit itself.

Getting there

Three minutes on foot from exit 1A at Shin-Toyosu Station, or ten minutes on foot from exit 7 at Toyosu Station.

Season

Open all year, and on 31 December it runs from 08:00 to 20:00 rather than during its usual hours, so check that date.

Watch out

The four zones run in order, Water, Garden, Athletics Forest and Open-Air, and the route through them is one-way only.

Plan this into a journey

Tell us which day you are in Tokyo and what else is on it. We will place the slot so the rest of the day still works.

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