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Pacific Asia Museum
Rating Details »
Categories: Museums, Landmarks & Historical Buildings
Neighborhood: Pasadena46 N Los Robles Ave
Pasadena, CA 91101
(626) 449-2742
Yoga at The Pacific Asia Museum
For the month of November, mention Yelp at the front…
Announced 4 days agoMore »
- Hours:
Wed-Sun. 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
- Good for Kids:
- Yes
21 reviews for Pacific Asia Museum
They have some really interesting festivals, that often offer free admission into the museum on top of the festivities.
The last one I attended celebrated puppets and even allowed children to participate in putting together a sand mandala. It was really rather nice alongside their Samurai exhibit which featured art from manga and comics.
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Nice museum, and it is also California Historical Landmark number 988. Quite a few exhibits, and a gift shop completes the museum.
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Last year around this time, one of my dearest friend had the unfortunate luck of needing to tie a knot with his long time sweetheart. I guess I felt nervous for him because of the uncertainties of the future of what it might hold for him and for me...another bachelor friend biting the dust.
When it was time to pick a place, the bride-to-be decided on this venue only because she had happened to drive by Ol' Town Pasadena and saw this place from across the street. Wow, impulse shopping at its worst. My friend went along with it only because it was "her" wedding.
Months passed by, with the newly acquired title of the Best Man, I have to accompany everyone involved in the wedding ceremony to this odd choice of a museum for a wedding rehearsal. There was a parking lot next to the museum, but beware they would start locking up the lot with the chains by 7pm if you are the unlucky museum visitor.
While on a break during the rehearsal, I decided to explore the grounds of the place and walked through the halls of several fine art exhibit. I glanced up and noticed an unusual stair with steps leading up to several conference hall rooms on the second floor. I turned around and was weirded out by this unusual fortress-like building that houses this museum. I started getting curious and decided to find out what significant history this place has.
According to tour guide book and the website, this museum was originally built as an home for Asian Art collector, Grace Nicholson. Supposedly the history gossip has it that she fancied to replicate the forbidden city in Beijing as a house that was going to built in Pasadena. Hence, the fortress with the big front door when you first visit.
She would built up a shop that sell Native American and Far East Asian art such as rugs, jade jeweleries, and other artifacts. While on the end of the building was her room for private collections and a gallery that she had set up for public viewing of the arts she had collected.
Earlier I had mentioned about stairs that lead to conference rooms and offices, those were in fact was her apartment where she lived while maintaining her gallery and shop downstairs. Grace Nicholson also build a magnificent courtyard and a beautiful koi pond that is behind the entrance when you walk in.
When Ms. Nicholson passed away, she donated her mansion to the city of Pasadena to be use as cultural purposes, such as a museum. There have been many other beautiful and historic arts that was donated or displayed in this museum over the years. It was her wishes that Asian arts from the Pacific won't get lost.
The great thing about being part of a wedding in this place was that you get to walk around and admired many of vases, paintings, and artifacts that have been relocated from Korea, Japan, China, and many of the countries from the Pacific. It's not the most elegant place you'll see for a museum, but the history of which of those art hold was priceless. Even though it had some great Asian arts being displayed, one of the most interesting fact was that Jasper John had his first ever exhibit displayed here in this museum.
Honestly, I have never been to Beijing nor will I ever be allowed to enter the Forbidden City. The inspirations of building of such a place was truly remarkable considering it would take much efforts and money to do this. Yet, I was very happy this place was pulled off by a dedicated patron of Asian arts.
The wedding of my two dear friends took place without a hitch in the courtyard and we also had the wedding banquet afterward here too at inside of the replica of the forbidden city. So this place obviously is open for bookings as a venue for gallery openings, small live performance, and in this case a wedding.
I'm not privy to the cost of getting place for an event for the whole night, but I was told it's somewhere in the region of a Kelly Bluebook value of a used 1996 Mercedes C230. You can inquire the rates with the staff.
Recently, my friend and I decided to revisit the place since his most important moment in life took place at this fable ground. He asked me if I wanted to get marry at this place one year after him. He suggested I should I get marry on the date of 08/08/08 for eternal prosperity and fortunes.
*sigh*. Yeah, about that.....
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I was here during Art Night, almost 3 years ago. They had a badass "Floating World" display.
I always contemplated getting tattoos in the floating world traditional style.
I don't know what it is, but I find that style of artwork amazing. It's one of my favorite when comparing the Asian arts.
I hope they have another showcase like that real soon, I'd love to come back.
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Such a sweet little place.. I imagined having some kind of event here.. they were gearing up for a birthday party in the courtyard. At @ 400 bucks an hour that would be some special party!
The collection was small but they have a Buddha i just fell in love with. Is that wrong?
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Small as it may be, but there are lots to see. Sometimes those big museums can be a little overwhelming and tiring, so it was pleasant to walk through this one. Actually, I went here for a scavenger hunt mixer. So not only did I get to network, but I got educated, too. What a productive day. :) There were sections of ceramics, sculptures, contemporary art, and an exhibit of the samaurai and it's connection to anime/manga. Their gift shop was also fun to peruse. A couple of reviewers talk about the museum being a nice place to have events here, and I agree. When you enter the museum, there's a nice outdoor courtyard in the center with a koi pond. They also have banquet rooms on the second floor.
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Quiz: What's the difference between a four-clawed dragon and a five-clawed dragon?
Hint: Visit the museum by Jan 27, 2008 for the answer.
Unknowingly, we dropped by the museum on the last Friday of the month (Dec 07) and entry is free. The feature exhibition is "Rank and Style: Power Dressing in Imperial China" that started since October 12, 2007 and ending on January 27, 2008.
The exhibition features a good collection from a private collector, Chris Hall, whom is deemed to have the best collection of Qing Dynasty Dragon robes and clothing accessories in the world. If you dig a little more, Chris Hall is actually a British working in Hong Kong. His passion started with his first purchase from Sotheby.
Besides Qing Porcelains (which the museum has a few pieces on display from Han, Song, Tang and Qing), I have a thing or two for Dragon Robes. it represents power and status yet so delicately woven in silk and gold threads, occasionally decorated with jade, ivory and turquoise. It's a piece of garment that we so often neglected when watching movies by Zhang YiMou, Chen Kaige when they filmed stories about the Imperial China.
What's more fascinating is the different animals that were embroidered onto the robes. Military officers had real and mythical ferocious 4-legged animals in descending rank order from QiLin, lion, leopard, tiger, bear, panther, and rhinoceros. While civil officers' robes bear the avian imagery such as golden pheasant, peacock, wild goose, silver pheasant, egret, mandarin duck, quail and the paradise flycatcher for being the lowest rank.
The exhibition also reveals the difference between Ming, Early Qing and Late Qing badges.
So do I yearn to have one decorated in my living room? Who doesn't but having a spare change of $250,000 USD helps.
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A wonderful collection housed in the historic Grace Nicholson Mansion. It appears to be an ancient Chinese home with titled roof and a beautiful courtyard with a koi pond.
It is not huge or "elegant" so if you go in with more humble expectations you'll enjoy your visit.
They also have online viewing of their exhibit and of former exhibits.
See my photos for exhibits and the garden.
PLUSES:
Wonderful collection (the Buddhas have perfect lighting).
Sweet garden
Air conditioned.
Small but fascinating gift store.
Reciprocity with Asian Art Museum- as contributing members we got
in free.
Free parking. You get a token once you've paid your admission.
Minuses:
None. May not impress folks expecting something grandiose.
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Lots of their pieces seem to be owned or on loaned by non-Asians and the museum could use more of an Asian American touch. Asian culture seen from non-Asian POV at times. Such as their PR, seems to be very out of touch with Asian American community, hopefully it's better now.
BUT I do like how they support local Asian American artists and not only that Taiwanese artists. When I found they were showcasing Taiwanese artists last year, it wasn't really on the Taiwanese community's radar but we made changes to that. I do like their store, especially since they sold books about Taiwanese culture. YAY!!!!
And yes it's great they have free parking. Cute courtyard. Curious to see what's it like at night.
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The outside courtyard is simply the most unique, magical, and gorgeous place for a small sized wedding reception (92 people or less is optimal) in the evening. It is soooooo not the mundane reception venue swathed in pastel fabrics and uplighting. In the daylight it is also very pretty but not as high impact. It comes complete with a koi pond, rock garden, and nice antique stairwells, and is shielded from wind on all four sides.
We had our wedding just now in March. I was afraid it was going to rain but luckily it did not, missed it by about 10 hours... and I am so glad I did not have to move it inside! There is not that much room for a dance floor so we simply did not have one, and it turned out just fine. One could conceivably move the buffet tables out of the way and have plenty of dance space, but there is not much point in dancing in a rock garden... best to go with the theme and keep it classy. I can't wait for the professional photos to come back - it was so unbelievably gorgeous, you would not even have to have extravagant centerpieces (though we did because I was being a bridezilla).
It is a bit on the moderate to pricey end of things but oh-so-worth-it, and the money would be going towards supporting the museum. Compared to other rentals it is probably slightly above average but you get so much ambiance with some hanging lanterns. We paid for 5 hours of time (1 hr setup, 1 hr cocktail, 3 hrs dinner/reception) at 2008 pricing which ended up being around 2K. It costed an extra $1200 for a full set of lanterns and ambient lighting with a company that the museum prefers to use (but this is optional, and you can decide to go with fewer lanterns).
Gabriella who is the coordinator at the museum is very professional, will answer all your questions (works Wed - Su) and try to accommodate special requests. With her help we were able to sneak past our guests, totally unseen, into the upstairs area and make our grand entrance from one of the staircases.
Now I just have to go check out the museum itself when I have time... so many interesting historical artifacts. I would have bought our guests entry fees into the museum, but there was not enough time in the reception for people to go milling about.
This museum exhibits works from all of Asia and the Pacific Islands: Japan, India, South Korea, New Guinea... My favorite piece in the permanent collection is Katsushika Hokusai's majestic and defiant "Eagle in a Snowstorm." http://www.pacificasia...
Hokusai signed it "old man crazy about painting, age 88 years." How cool that a senior citizen created a work of such power and precision.
This will always be my favorite small museum because my husband and I got married in the lovely courtyard garden. There's a neat little koi pond, and the building is inspired by the architecture of the Qing dynasty. The staff were really easy to work with, and our wedding guests raved about the galleries. Renting the courtyard wasn't crazy expensive either -- check the website for current rates: http://www.pacificasia.../
By the way, there's free admission the 4th Friday of the month.
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In my book, all museums start off with 3 stars. To me, putting historic or groundbreaking artifacts or art on display for the public to see is wonderful. I give the Pacific Asia Museum one extra star for its uniqueness in content, for the historic building they occupy, and for the wonderful central courtyard. I particularly enjoy their porcelain collection and it's a shame they don't have more space to display their entire collection! It's definitely worth it if you're in town and have an hour or two to spare.
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This is another Pasadena museum worth joining, if you're at all local. It's fun simply to drop in for a break--to say hi to the koi, maybe--or for a quick visit to see a new show or some favorite old pieces from their collection (easy parking in the museum lot next door). Oh, and their opening parties are festive and fun. Great food, often!
I took an art class here in the olden days, helped teach art here when I was in high school, and enjoy it now, in its current incarnation! The place is a local treasure.
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Had visited the museum at least a handful of times and despite the collection being small for some people's tastes, its always a fun visit. Decided to buy a membership as well and hopefully I'll have time to head out to some of their events.
If for nothing else, pay a visit to the Pacific Asia Museum to definitely see something different.
Air conditioning was a relief when I visited. I love South Asian sculpture but I went here for Songkran (Thai New Year) in the courtyard. I've seen nicer koi ponds though. Parking was in a lot nearby. The museum interior is a meditative space with well lit statuary on pedestals.
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My friend Eric and I went here to scout a location for my next shoot. Its very educational and the Garden in the middle of it all is spectacular. Theres a modern Sound museum and sushi made of glass. You'll love it :)
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I came here 10 years ago, and I remember seeing lots of artifacts from China, Japan, and Korea. I distinctly remember seeing a case of jade jewelry, and I also remember a koi pond in the stone courtyard. I'd like to come back here again.
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A gem of a museum. Has a nice Chinese collection and shows promise in the Indian Art department. I was impressed with the quality of the art that this museum has acquired. The courtyard is peaceful place to sit and meditate between galleries. Within the next few years, this is going to become a major player within the Asian art world in Southern California.
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i love this place- we held our wedding here back in october 06, and it was fabulous- the garden is beautiful, whimsical, & they were so accomodating with our wedding- we brought our own booze and food (catered by none other than auntie em's kitchen).
it's a great museum and a terrific & unique venue to host parties and events.
Interesting place. Lots of artifacts, but not really full of art per se. The garden is nice with its magnolia trees and all. It was okay to see, but I don't plan on coming back.
it's no asian art museum, but still very worthy of a looksee...
