First Look: TeamLab Biovortex Kyoto
Visiting teamLab’s largest Japan facility.
Cover photo: Posing with Forest of Resonating Lamps: One Stroke - a Year in the Mountains at teamLab Biovortex Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan (2025). Photo by Danny With Love.
TeamLab Biovortex Kyoto Review
TeamLab Biovortex Kyoto opened on October 7th, located just a ten-minute walk from Kyoto Station. With 50 installations spanning 10,000 square meters (107,639 square feet), it’s the art collective’s largest facility in Japan. Is it worth a visit?
As I’m quite familiar with teamLab, I was curious to see the space for myself. I went last weekend! The only time slot available during was Friday evening, so the space was very busy. Despite the building’s large size, this was certainly my most crowded teamLab experience yet.
The scale of teamLab Biovortex Kyoto is immense and it’s unnavigable without the team’s dedicated app. There are a total of three labyrinthine floors! I was tired after finishing the second floor and exhausted mid-way through the third.
There are only a few new artworks, namely Massless Amorphous Sculpture (featuring soap bubbles) and Transient Abstract Life and Return (a pool of mystery liquid). Overall, Biovortex feels like a compromise between Tokyo’s Planets and Borderless rather than an evolution. The facility includes the playground Athletics Forest and Sketch Factory but there are no lush plant worlds or cafe areas.
While teamLab is expanding quickly worldwide, Biovortex does little to address my previous concerns: is the teamLab experience for appreciating art or obsessive photoshoots? Constant crowds make it difficult to stop and breathe.
My personal highlight was the Athletics Forest, where I had to set down my phone and really engage with the space — jumping on a trampoline runway and bouncing spheres or aerial climbing. Sadly, this is located on the third floor, which I had arrived to just before closing time. Surely, it would be better to have such physical activities at the start with more passive works at the end.
Ultimately, Biovortex offers a perfectly fine teamLab experience — with impressive size and convenient location — but it’s also totally skippable for visitors familiar with their other sites.
TeamLab Biovortex Kyoto Access
TeamLab Biovortex Kyoto is just a ten-minute walk from Kyoto Station. Adult tickets start at 3,600 yen ~ 23 USD. I recommend buying tickets online at least one month in advance to secure an early time slot.
