Maekawa also established three themes to guide the design: Providing a “quiet, neutral” backdrop for the exhibited works, maintaining connection with the exterior environment, and using materials and construction methods that ensure optimal durability and thereby ‘produce remarkable results by means of ordinary materials.’” (Excerpt from the “Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum Basic Design Explanation”). On this basis, he worked out the concrete design details.

The critic, Shuichi Kato, wrote: “Tokyo streets have no order. Kunio Maekawa has consistently tried to produce small urban spaces in this chaotic context, through his arrangement of plural building volumes on the site. The courtyards and voids within the building’s walls perform not only as passageways but as open spaces to breath, relax, meet people, and talk. His buildings, this is to say, contain harmonious urban spaces on a reduced scale.”