National Museum of International Art in Osaka located on the island of Nakanoshima, Dojima between the rivers and Tosabori, near the Science Museum.

The museum was opened in 1977 - after the Osaka international exhibition Expo-70, during which he worked Pavilion of Fine Arts. In 2004 the museum moved to a new building because the old premises had not contain all the artifacts stored in it, and was quite dilapidated. The project is the first building designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, a new draft was created by American Cesar Pelli.

Thanks to the talent Pelli, Osaka gained another unusual attraction - a museum, much of which is under the ground - namely, three of the four floors. Cesar Pelli is also known as the author of other world-class attractions such as the Petronas Towers in the Malaysian capital and JFK Airport in New York.

Place an underground museum was decided due to the fact that in the central part of Osaka was not much space for development. As a result, the underground was built sealed capsule with three-layer walls, the depth of 22 meters. Construction of the museum was carried out for five years by Cesar Pelli and two Japanese companies - Tomoki Hashimoto and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Above ground floor of the building was designed and built in such a way as to provide underneath it "underground" light and air circulating in the ventilation system. The above-ground part of the museum looks like an avant-garde design of the metal tubes. Sam Pelly said that depicted the way a reed swaying in the wind. The total area of ​​the museum is 13, 5 thousand square meters. meters.

Collection of the National Museum has more than five thousand works of art, created mainly in the second half of the XX century. Among them - the paintings of Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Cezanne and other masters.