D. T. Suzuki Museum Audio Guide

D. T. Suzuki Museum: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to D. T. Suzuki Museum

   Welcome to the D. T. Suzuki Museum in Kanazawa, in Ishikawa Prefecture. In Japanese it is called Suzuki Daisetsu Kan, written 鈴木大拙館. It opened in 2011 and is dedicated to the life, writings and ideas of D. T. Suzuki, the Buddhist philosopher who was born right here in Kanazawa. A quick word on how this guide works. I will keep to the broad strokes that are well established: who Suzuki was, who designed the building, how the museum is laid out, and how it sits among its neighbors. I will not invent small details about individual exhibits or rooms. That suits the place, which is about space and quiet rather than a crowd of objects. The museum stands in the part of Kanazawa where Suzuki was born, about a 10 minute walk from Kenrokuen, one of Japan's three great gardens. So you are in a city of famous gardens and samurai history, and this museum offers a different kind of stillness.

2. 02

   The Philosopher Behind the D. T. Suzuki Museum

   Suzuki Daisetz Teitaro lived from 1870 to 1966, a span of 96 years, and he became one of the most prominent Buddhist philosophers of his age. He was born in Kanazawa, and this city's claim on him is the reason the museum exists. The name Daisetsu, the second part of the museum's Japanese name, is the form of his name used in Japan, while the world knows him by the initials D. T. The museum's purpose is to share his life, his writings and his ideas, and to let you follow his footsteps through his calligraphy, photographs and books. Notice that this is a museum about a way of thinking rather than a collection of treasures. It is meant to be the kind of place where you take an idea away with you instead of ticking off objects. That is also why the museum sits in the neighborhood where he was born. A thinker who traveled and wrote on a world stage is brought home, in a modest but deliberate way, to the city that first shaped him.

3. 03

   Taniguchi's Architecture at the D. T. Suzuki Museum

   The building was designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, an architect from Kanazawa. Alongside the architect Yoshiro Taniguchi, he is counted among the great architects the city has produced. The design treats the architecture itself as an interpretation of Suzuki's thought. Its lines are calm and uncluttered, and the structures are kept simple on purpose, so that the building expresses the teachings instead of simply housing them. A contemplative space is part of the facility, and a water mirror garden is one of the places where that calm becomes visible. Greenery drapes over the stone walls and forms a backdrop that is meant to call up an idyllic image of Kanazawa. Architectural writers often read buildings like this through an idea called Critical Regionalism, proposed by the historian Kenneth Frampton. It asks modern design to grow from regional character instead of looking the same anywhere in the world. Here, restrained modern forms and a Kanazawa setting are brought together, and you can judge for yourself how well the walls, water and greenery do that.

4. 04

   Kanazawa Around the D. T. Suzuki Museum

   The museum is part of a rich cultural neighborhood. Kenrokuen is about a 10 minute walk away, and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art is roughly the same distance. A walking trail through the museum's garden also offers a shortcut to the Kanazawa Nakamura Museum and the Prefectural Museum of Art, so the museum can be one stop in a longer afternoon on foot. It also fits the character of the city. Kanazawa has been described as a place that weaves new threads, meaning modern architecture, into the cloth of its tradition without cutting the old threads of history. Samurai quarters, teahouse districts and craft traditions sit beside contemporary buildings. The wealth of the Kaga domain, the greatest of all the daimyo, shaped the art and culture the city produced through the Edo period. After your visit, you might walk past the water mirror garden from the outside.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   As you leave the D. T. Suzuki Museum, you carry out what the building was designed to offer, which is a slower pace of attention. Few museums ask you to look at the walls, the water and the greenery with as much care as at what is on display. Try noticing how the stone, the water and the plants meet each other, and how the stillness inside differs from the lively streets of Kanazawa outside. Think about how a philosopher who belonged to the wider world is remembered in the neighborhood of his birth. From here, Kenrokuen and the city's other museums are close by on foot. Each offers another way of seeing Kanazawa, and I would be glad to take you through any of them, or to dig deeper into Suzuki's ideas or Taniguchi's design.