MFA Japanese Garden

Dedicated in 1988 and named Tenshin-en (“Garden of the Heart of Heaven”) for former MFA curator Kakuzō Okakura, the viewing garden was conceived by Kyoto designer Kinsaku Nakane to express the vastness of nature in miniature within a strictly limited space.

Specific rock formations figure Mount Sumeru alongside the legendary Tortoise and Crane islands. Surrounding them are 1,750 plantings across more than seventy American and Japanese species, where cherries, Japanese maples, and pines register the changing seasons and echo the rugged coastline and deep forests of New England.