Toto Gallery·Ma Tokyo

Toto Gallery·Ma is a gallery specializing in architecture and design that is operated by Toto as part of the company’s social contribution program. The gallery takes its name from the unique Japanese concept of ma-ai, which describes the spatiotemporal intervals or connective voids that are perceived between people, time, or space.

Since opening in October 1985, Toto Gallery·Ma has remained devoted to organizing private exhibitions featuring architects and designers from across the world. The gallery offers exhibitors with a unique opportunity to freely demonstrate their individuality by allowing them to design their own exhibitions and to thereby comprehensively produce the spaces of the entire gallery as a single creative presentation. The gallery itself has a distinctive spatial configuration in which its two independent exhibition rooms are connected by an exterior courtyard. Although it is a small gallery with a total area of about 240 square meters, its intimate size has allowed for the possibility to create rich exhibitions that effectively capture and convey the philosophies and values of the exhibitors.

The exhibitions at Toto Gallery·Ma are planned by its Planning and Management Committee. The original committee was formed by the founders of Toto Gallery·Ma: Tadao Ando, Motomi Kawakami, Masayuki Kurokawa, Takashi Sugimoto, and Ikko Tanaka. A new committee was elected on the occasion of the gallery’s 25th anniversary in 2010 and it is now represented by Tadao Ando (Special Advisor), Waro Kishi, Hiroshi Naito, Kenya Hara, and Erwin Viray. In addition to hosting exhibitions, Toto Gallery·Ma has organized accompanying lecture events to provide an opportunity for each exhibitor to share their ideas directly with a public audience. Starting in 1995, Toto Gallery·Ma has also been operating with Toto Publishing to produce complementary publications which, together with the exhibitions and lectures, complete a multifaceted presentation of the ideas of each architect and designer. By providing a stage for individual architects and designers to express their personal philosophies and values, Toto Gallery·Ma will continue to transmit through the ages the messages of each of the exhibitors who shine with a uniquely rich light.