Established in 1960, Suzhou Museum is a comprehensive local museum and the central hub for the collection, protection, research, display, and education of Suzhou’s cultural relics. Located at 399 Changjiang Road in the High-Tech Zone, the West Pavilion of Suzhou Museum covers an area of 48,365 square meters with an exhibition area of 13,391 square meters, showcasing over 2,100 pieces/sets of cultural relics, including precious items such as the Sword of King Yu of Wu, the Blue Paper Gold Script ‘Lotus Sutra’, and the Jun Kiln Drum Nailed Tripod Wash, which began trial operations on September 25, 2021.
The West Pavilion of Suzhou Museum features several exhibition areas, including the General History Exhibition Hall, Suzhou Crafts Exhibition Hall, and Multimedia Exhibition Hall, comprehensively displaying the long history and characteristic crafts of Wu region from various aspects such as culture, arts, Suzhou craftsmanship, and Suzhou-style life. Based on the Jiangnan culture, the West Pavilion also specially sets up an International Cooperation Hall, collaborating with world-renowned museums to actively explore the connection and integration of diverse world cultures. The West Pavilion of Suzhou Museum places greater emphasis and highlights the educational function of the museum. It is the first to attempt to set up an Exploration Experience Hall within a local comprehensive museum in China, creating a museum school for young audiences in the country, allowing them to understand Suzhou and see the world through open, interactive, and exploratory experiences. The General History Exhibition Hall is located on the first floor of the West Pavilion of Suzhou Museum, with an exhibition area of 2,280 square meters and a total exhibition line of 360 meters, displaying over 1,200 pieces/sets of cultural relics, with more than 150 key pieces/sets. The exhibition starts from three dimensions: city, history, and people, using space, historical facts, and figures as clues, and time as the sequence, to display the history of Suzhou from the Paleolithic Age of San Shan Island to the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution, spanning ten thousand years. The Suzhou Crafts Exhibition Hall is located on the second floor of the West Pavilion of Suzhou Museum, with an exhibition area of 2,280 square meters, displaying Suzhou’s fine crafts from the Song and Yuan dynasties to the modern era, spanning a thousand years. The exhibition displays 900 pieces/sets of cultural relics, with 150 key pieces/sets, including jade carving, bamboo carving, Suzhou embroidery, and Taohuawu woodblock New Year paintings, and other traditional crafts. The exhibition aims to reveal the brilliant achievements of Suzhou crafts and the key role of Suzhou crafts and Suzhou-style culture in the development of Chinese traditional culture and art. The International Cooperation Hall is located on the second floor of the West Pavilion of Suzhou Museum, with an exhibition area of 1,037 square meters, taking the history of world civilization as the main line, and is committed to enhancing the international vision of the West Pavilion of Suzhou Museum. By collaborating with world-renowned museums to hold exhibitions, it provides visitors with a global viewing experience without leaving Suzhou. The Multimedia Exhibition Hall is located on the underground first floor of the West Pavilion of Suzhou Museum, with an exhibition area of about 540 square meters, including three areas: Suzhou Color Life Digital Hall, Audio-Visual Room, and Derivative Product Space.The Digital Hall of Su Color Life, themed around ‘Su Color Life’, is guided by the aesthetics of Suzhou life under the twenty-four solar terms. It extracts color based on traditional Suzhou cultural life aesthetics and showcases an immersive digital synesthetic space through digital media screens, presenting Suzhou life through a solar term, a season, and a day and night. The Exploration Experience Hall, located on the underground first floor of the Suzhou Museum West Pavilion, covers an exhibition area of 4501 square meters. It focuses on the comprehensive development of children aged 3-12 through ‘theme-based’ exhibition and education integration. By merging the exhibition space with educational areas and interactive experiences of exhibitions and education, it stimulates the imagination and creativity of young audiences, offering them an exclusive space for exploration, learning, and imagination. The museum is open all year round, closed on Mondays; open from 09:00 to 17:00 from Tuesday to Sunday; and open from 09:00 to 20:00 on National Day.
