Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens

Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens provides authentic Japanese experiences and it is the go-to place for gorgeous views and inspiration. Aside from the museum, with its top notch exhibitions created to give visitors an insight into Japan, the museum is the home to six outstanding gardens, a tea house, a library with thousand of volumes, and many cultural events and workshops.

Gardens

Morikami Museum houses six gorgeous, Japanese-style gardens inspired on famous gardens in Japan. They were design by Hoichi Kurisu.

• Shinden Garden – Two islands reachable via a bridge are located on a lake inspired by the shinden gardens which were originally from the city of Kyoto during the T’ang Dynasty China. The word shinden has many meanings, one of the being “god’s place”.
• Paradise Garden – represents the Buddhist Heaven and in Japan, these gardens adorned temples to provide solitude and hope for people who had undergone jeopardy in their lives. At Morikami, the garden was inspired on the first garden in Japan that featured a path for people to walk from one side to another.
• Early Rock Garden – Inspired on a temple in Kyoto and features a dry waterfall. These type of gardens in Japan were inspired in Chinese paintings.
• Karesansui Late Garden – a dry landscape where rocks are the primary view while plants are just secondary, usually used to adorn Zen temples and used for meditation purposes and rid the mind of worldly thoughts, attachments and needs.
• Hiraniwa Flat Garden – In Japan, these type of gardens were mostly used for residential purposes and often featured ornaments such as pagodas, basins, wells and staircases. The signature element of these gardens were the distant views such as a temple or a mountain; and in the case of Morikami, it is the view of the museum.
• Modern Romantic Garden – which reflects a lot of “Western” features and influences and show the changes that the Japanese culture endured during the 19th century due to globalization.

Tea House

The tea house in Morikami Museum is modeled after the original thesōan houses and holds tea ceremonies which visitors to the museum can take part in to give them the full experience of harmony that these Japanese ceremonies are for. Ceremonies take place on select Saturdays (please refer to the website for dates) and occasional workshops are held as well.

Museum

The museum holds several galleries that feature Japanese art, artifacts, culture and pieces from private collectors. There are two permanent exhibitions: The Yamato Colony: Pioneering Japanese in Florida, which showcases history of an agriculture experiment and Japan Through the Eyes of a Child, which transports the visitor to the different world and culture that is Japan.

Library

Donald B. Gordon Research Library holds over 7,000 volumes on different topics about Japan.

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