Isuien Garden

Summary
Isuien Garden, located in the heart of Nara City, is a historic Japanese garden where the beauty of Edo and Meiji period cultures intertwine. Our goal is to preserve this valuable cultural heritage for future generations. However, we currently face financial challenges in maintaining the garden and its artworks.

Challenge
Isuien faces significant challenges in maintenance and repairs. Aging infrastructure and the impact of natural disasters require funds to preserve the garden’s beauty and safety. Additionally, the preservation of cultural assets remains a critical issue.

Solution
Your donations directly contribute to the maintenance of the garden and the protection of artworks. Specifically, funds are used for garden upkeep, repairs, and the conservation of exhibits, helping to share the splendor of Japanese culture with all visitors.

Long-Term Impact
With your support, Isuien can maintain its beauty and continue to inspire visitors. Furthermore, as a regional cultural heritage site, it will enhance its appeal as a tourist destination, sustaining its cultural significance.

The Isuien Garden has been designated as a “place of scenic beauty” by the national government under the “Cultural Properties Protection Law.” The garden in fact consists of two types of gardens designed in two different time periods.

One is the “Front Garden,” designed as a Japanese style garden secluded from the outside world in the early Edo Period (seventeenth century). The other is the “Back Garden” designed in the Meiji Era (early twentieth century) where visitors can enjoy neighboring landscape in the background of the garden.

The Neiraku Museum of Art owns and displays more than two thousand art objects that survived the air raid of Kobe City in 1945. They were collected by NAKAMURA Junsaku, his son Junichi, and his grandson Junsuke. The Nakamura family maintained sea-transportation business. Junsaku purchased the Isuien Garden in 1939 from the Seki family, and Junsuke started to display a part of the collection of art objects in 1958.

The coverage of the collection is temporally and spatially diverse. The collection includes ancient Chinese bronzes, seals, bronze mirrors, and rubbings of Chinese stelae, as well as ceramics of Koryo Korea and porcelains of Yi Dynasty Korea, in addition to ancient rooftiles and utensils for Japanese tea ceremonies. Since we cannot display all the collection at once, what is displayed in the museum changes on regular bases. In spring and autumn, we exhibit different paintings in the Matamata Ichiraku jo, a collection of thirteen paintings by TANOMURA Chikuden (1777-1835), which has been designated as an important cultural property by the national government.

The building of the museum was designed by the architect TOHATA Kenzo. The projecting and curving roof of the building is an adaptation of the typical Nara style roof. The building was completed in 1969.

The Sanshutei Tea House was transferred to the Isuien Front Garden in the early Edo Period (late seventeenth century) as a secondary house of the Kiyosumi family, a very wealthy merchant trading high-quality fabric.

In the Sanshutei Tea House, we serve grated yam with rice and barley.

We hope that you enjoy a meal in the calmness while viewing the Front Garden.