Museum of Oriental Art, Art museum in Palazzo Mazzonis, Turin, Italy
The Museum of Oriental Art, also known as MAO, is an art museum in central Turin housed in a restored 17th-century palazzo spread across five floors. The collection covers works from across Asia, ranging from ancient objects to later artistic traditions.
The MAO opened in 2008, bringing together Asian collections previously held at Turin's City Museum of Ancient Art along with donations from regional organizations. The merger gave the city's Asian art holdings a dedicated home for the first time.
The collection moves through rooms dedicated to China, Japan, the Himalayas, and the Islamic world, each with its own visual tone. Walking through, you shift from Buddhist sculpture to Chinese painting to Islamic calligraphy within a single visit.
The building is fully accessible by wheelchair on all five floors, so getting around is straightforward regardless of mobility. Allow at least a couple of hours if you want to move through the full range of galleries.
Tucked into the museum's courtyard are two Japanese rock gardens that many visitors walk past without noticing. They were designed by a Japanese garden designer and follow traditional principles in which the arrangement of stones and gravel carries symbolic meaning.
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