International megagallery Pace has announced that it will open a branch in the new Azabudai Hills development in central Tokyo in the spring of 2024. The 5,500-square-foot outpost will occupy three lower floors of a building designed by British architect Thomas Heatherwick. Sou Fujimoto will have charge of the gallery’s interior design. The Japanese architect is known for his design of Tokyo’s Musashino Art University Museum and Library; in 2013, London’s Serpentine Galleries tapped him for its prestigious Pavilion commission. Some 3,000 square feet of Pace Tokyo will be devoted to gallery space; a terrace meant to host outdoor sculpture exhibitions will command the remainder of the square footage.
Pace’s decision to open a branch in Tokyo is no doubt influenced by the city’s rising status as an art hub, most recently affirmed by the inauguration this past July of international art fair Tokyo Gendai. The blue-chip gallery has increasingly focused on Asia in recent years, arriving in Seoul in 2017, well ahead of the launch of Frieze Seoul there in 2022. That year, the gallery announced it was doubling its footprint in the South Korean capital city. Pace additionally has locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, Geneva, and Palm Beach, Florida.
Japan in 2021 reworked its tax structure in order to allow its art market to compete with those of Hong Kong and Seoul, both of which are superheated. “Japan [sic] is and has always been a key city in the international cultural scene,” noted Pace CEO Marc Glimcher in a statement. “Over the past few years, Tokyo’s increasing importance in the Asian art ecosystem has become even clearer. As one of the great capitals of the world it is a place where ancient and modern cultures combine with an incredibly vibrant contemporary art scene.”
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