Luyeyuan is a private museum in the countryside west of Chengdu, founded by a collector and designed by a Chinese architect who built the galleries around a small stream and the existing trees rather than clearing the site. It opened in the early 2000s and holds a collection of Buddhist stone sculpture from Sichuan and neighbouring provinces, much of it excavated locally, spanning roughly the fifth to the thirteenth centuries. It is a small, quiet place and almost unknown to visitors, which is a large part of its value.
The collection
Sichuan has its own distinct tradition of Buddhist stone carving, in the cliff shrines and cave temples of the region, and the museum gathers individual figures and relief panels that came off the sites or out of the ground. The works are mostly limestone and sandstone: standing and seated Buddhas, bodhisattvas, guardian figures, and fragments of larger groups, some worn to near-abstraction by water and time and others intact enough to show the original carving and the remains of pigment. The display is sparse and the lighting restrained, with the pieces set against plain surfaces rather than in vitrines crowded together.
The building and the grounds
The architecture is a sequence of low concrete volumes with rough surfaces, joined by open walkways and stairs around a courtyard with water in it, and the galleries open onto the landscape. Trees were kept where they stood, and the result is closer to a garden with sculpture in it than to an institutional building. There is a small shop and a place to sit, and the surrounding countryside of farmland and low hills is pleasant to walk in.
Practical notes
The museum is in Pi County, roughly an hour from central Chengdu by car, and there is no convenient public transport, so it needs a car and driver. Opening hours can be irregular for a private museum, so telephone or check ahead before travelling; it is normally open during the day and closed on Mondays. Allow about two hours including the grounds. Because it is small and seldom visited, a guide or a good translation app is helpful for the labels, and the museum is a sensible stop if you are already travelling west towards the mountains or Dujiangyan.
