The Suzhou Museum is located on the west side of the Humble Administrator's Garden in Pingjiang District, an ancient city in Suzhou. It includes the new building that opened in 2006 and the ancient building of Palace of King Zhong of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (the old building). The entire museum is like a small garden. In the new museum, you can see artifacts such as pottery, jade, paintings and calligraphy from ancient times to modern times. In Palace of King Zhong, you can also see the beauty and elegance of the “Su-style painting”.
The new Suzhou Museum designed by I.M. Pei Architect with Pei Partnership Architects is located in the northeast section of the historic quarter of Suzhou. It adjoins the landmarked Zhong Wang Fu, a complex of 19th-century historical structures, and the Garden of the Humble Administrator, a 16th-century garden listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Suzhou was the artistic center of China in the Ming period – 15th to 16th centuries – and most of the famous artists of the time were natives of Suzhou. The museum opened its galleries for painting and calligraphy with a special display of works by the so-called Four Ming Masters (all from Suzhou), combining the museum’s own holdings with loans from the Shanghai Museum. The antiquities are mainly bronzes and jades from archaeological excavations of Neolithic (jades from ~2,500 B.C.) and Bronze Age sites (mainly bronzes and jades c.500 B.C.) around Suzhou.
The design of the museum takes its cues from the rich vocabulary of Suzhou’s traditional architecture, with its whitewashed plaster walls, dark grey clay tile roofs and intricate garden architecture. However these basic elements have been reinterpreted and synthesized into a new language and order, one that is contemporary and forward looking and hopefully one that is a possible direction for the future of Chinese modern architecture.
As with traditional Suzhou architecture, the design of the Art Museum is organized around a series of gardens and courts that mediates between the building and its surrounding environment. The main Museum Garden is a contemporary extension and commentary of the Garden of the Humble Administrator to the north. As visual connections between the two properties are not possible due to the high garden walls, water is used physically and metaphorically as a bridge between the two properties.
The landscape design of the new Museum Garden and its smaller Gallery and Administrative Gardens is not based on traditional and conventional approaches. Rather, new design directions and themes were sought for each of them, where the essence of traditional landscape design can be distilled and reformulated into potentially new directions for Chinese garden architecture.
The Suzhou Museum opened to the public on October 6, 2006.
Access
The entrance is located at the Dong Bei Street close to the crossroad of Dong Bei Street and Qi Men Road.
Admission
Museum Hours: 9 am - 5 pm from Tuesday to Sunday (No admission after 4 pm), the museum is closed on Monday except the national holidays.
Visitors will be informed previously if the museum is closed for special activities or maintenance.
Address: 204 Dong Bei Street, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China
Telephone: 0512-67575666
Suzhou Museum was free open to the public from May 18, 2008.
Security Check
Visitors shall take the security check before entering the museum in the left side office.
Green Passage
Reserved Groups:
Groups should make reservations 1 to 3 days before arrival at 86-512-67575666; the museum staff will schedule your visit, and issue a priority of visit upon your arrival. Any change of schedule, please inform us at 86-512-67575666.
Special Visitors:
Senior citizens aged 60 or above with valid ID
Active solider or disabled people with valid ID
Retired veteran cadre with valid ID, a company is allowed
Children under 1.20 meters in height with adult
People work for the museum or cultural relic institute with validID
Tour guide accompanying a group (the tour guide certificate will not be accepted as a free admission warrant)
Approved journalist with valid ID, please contact our Administrative Department at 86-0512-67575111
Charged Admission:
Charges may be required for some special exhibitions.
Public Services
Orientation
Guided Tours: Docents are available both in English and Mandarin.Please make reservations, 100 RMB/tour for Chinese and 200 RMB/tour for English .
Volunteer Docents: volunteer docents are available in the lobby according to our schedule.
Audio Guide: portable Audio Guides with earphones in English are available in the lobby, they are equipped with volume control and recorded programming, 35 RMB/set.
Museum Map: free museum map and publications both in English and Mandarin are available at the Information Desk.
Information: There is multimedia touch-screen in the lobby
Video programs
Orientation Room
Free programs, 60 minutes
The Collections of Suzhou Museum (Chinese with English subtitles)
The Prince Zhong’s Mansion of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (Chinesewith English subtitles)
M. Pei and the New Suzhou Museum (Chinese with English subtitles)
Roaming around the Suzhou Museum (Chinese with English subtitles)
Four videos will be a round of Show
9:15 am to 10:15 am
11:00 am to 12:00 am
1:15 pm to 2:15 pm
3:15 pm to 4:15 pm
C: Education & Extension Programs
D: Tea House: resting and tea sipping in the Tea House and the Wisteria Garden. We provide both Chinese and Western-style tea and pastries.
E: Museum Shop: located at the east wing to the Great Hall, the Museum Shop features the souvenirs and publications by the KingdomINC., you can also find the books about the museum at the desk in the Great Hall.
F: Coat Check: free check in of visitors'luggage, clothing and other articles, locates in the west wing beside the Great Hall.
G: Accessibility: Wheelchairs are available free of charge atcoat-check areas, lifts are accessible to each floor, and restrooms on the B1 for the people with disabilities are accessible on eachfloor.
H: Lost and Found: Please call 86-0512-67575666 or inquire at the Information Desk about lost belongings.
I: First Aid: there is a first-aid kit at the Information Desk.
J: Parking: there are two parking lots around the museum, which are the Lion Forest Garden and the Humble Administrator's GardenParking lots, the fee is 10 RMB for a daytime. Bicycles can parkalong the Qi Men Road at the owner's risk; the museum has noresponsibility for theft.
Notice to Visitors
The constant temperature is 20 Celsius degree in the museum; The visitors with improper attire or slippers (made of sponge, plasticand cotton cloth) are not allowed to enter the Museum.
Please keep your voices down in the Museum.
No smoking in the museum
No pets in the museum
Food and colored drinks are not permitted in the museum except in the Tea House
No mobile phone in the galleries and video room
Video camera is not permitted in the museum. The use of flash is prohibited, no tripod. Photographs cannot be published, sold,reproduced, transferred, distributed or other commercially exploit.Photography is not permitted in special exhibitions or areas with the sign ‘No Photography’; any photos for news release or other special purpose, please call the Administration Department of Suzhou Museum at 86-0512-67575111 during business hours.
Suzhou Museum reserves the right to adjust the policy ofphotography.
Please use pencil, ballpoint, crayon, pastel and charcoal tosketch; the use of ink, fountain pen and paints is prohibited; donot use stand and bother other visitors when sketching. Somespecial exhibitions may not allow to sketch.
The library is only open to staffs and volunteers, people with recommendations issued by cultural units or academic institutes canuse the library.
Enquiry at 86-0512-67575666
Getting Here
By bus
A number of buses service the area, including the1, 2, 5, 40, 55,178, 202, 309, 313, 518, 529, 811 and 923.
By car
Drive off the Nanjing-Shanghai Expressway or the Suzhou-Jiaxing-Hangzhou Expressway from the Guan Duli Exit, Suzhou.Then turn to Bei Huan lu (the north ring road) for about 500 meters and turn left to Qi Men Road, the museum is about 200 meters ahead.
