Suzhou Museum

Background

Suzhou Museum was founded on New Year's Day 1960 on Dongbei Street in Gusu District. Its site has two parts: the old eastern wing is the former Palace of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Loyal Prince (Zhong Wang Fu), and the new western wing, designed by architect I. M. Pei, was completed and opened in 2006. The new building reinterprets the Suzhou garden with white walls, grey stone roofs and steel-framed glass skylights; at its center are the entrance hall and a museum garden of slate-stone rockery, a pond and a zigzag bridge, with the galleries to the west and a modern art gallery and education facilities to the east. The collection holds more than 40,000 objects, chiefly artifacts excavated in Suzhou, painting and calligraphy by Ming and Qing literati, and Jiangnan crafts, including nearly 250 national first-grade cultural relics. The permanent exhibitions form four series, "Treasures of Wu," "National Treasures from Wu Pagodas," "Elegance of Wu" and "Wumen Painting and Calligraphy," with the Buddhist relics found in the Yunyan Temple Pagoda on Tiger Hill and the Ruiguang Temple Pagoda as highlights.

Local customs

• Many visitors start in the main courtyard with I. M. Pei's slab-rock rockery—white wall as paper, stone slabs as painting, like a three-dimensional landscape painting—then pass through the galleries to see the historic architecture of the Zhongwang Mansion. Suzhou people often fit the Suzhou Museum, the Humble Administrator's Garden and the Lion Grove Garden into the same morning, since all three are within walking distance around Dongbei Street
• the museum's cultural products and special painting and calligraphy exhibitions also keep drawing locals back.

Religion & beliefs

• The museum has no religious function, but the “Treasures of the Wu Pagodas” exhibition displays Buddhist relics such as sutra scrolls, reliquaries and Buddhist statues unearthed from the Yunyan Temple Pagoda at Tiger Hill and the Ruiguang Temple Pagoda
• please respect them as religious relics, don't lean on the display cases, and don't make inappropriate gestures toward the Buddhist statues or pose with them.

Rules that apply here

Travel tips

• Allow 2–3 hours, or half a day if you see the special exhibitions and the Zhongwang Mansion. Exit Beisita Station on Metro Line 4 or Humble Administrator's Garden·Suzhou Museum Station on Line 6 and you are there. The surrounding streets are narrow and parking is difficult, so public transport or walking is recommended. The main Suzhou Museum is free but requires advance real-name reservation, and it usually closes on Mondays (except public holidays). The West Branch and the Folk Custom Museum have different reservation rules
• all are subject to official announcements, and slots are tight in summer and on holidays. Combine with: the Humble Administrator's Garden, the Suzhou Garden Museum and the Lion Grove Garden on the same street, and walk south to the Pingjiang Road historic district. The Suzhou Museum West Branch, in the Suzhou High-tech Zone, needs a separate visit.