The Barnes Foundation’s art collection moved in May of 2012 from its original home, an elegant 1920s mansion on the grounds of an arboretum, to
a modern limestone structure designed by New York architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien.
The Shofuso Japanese House and Garden, built in Japan in the 1950s and moved to Philadelphia shortly thereafter, occupies a site in West Fairmount
Park that has been home to a number of Japanese cultural installations since the Centennial Exposition of 1876.
To enter the Shofuso Japanese House, visitors must remove their shoes and don socks (if they aren't already wearing them) in observance of the Japanese tradition of "shoes on stone, socks on wood."
Shofuso encourages visitors to feed the koi fish that populate the pond. Staffers call one of the oldest and largest koi “Moby” after the Melvillian white whale.
