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The museum opened in April 1998 in Chigasaki, a city blessed with a mild climate. The museum is surrounded by a lush green park with pine trees and was once the home (Manshoen) of Otojiro Kawakami and Sadayakko Kawakami, a Meiji-era shingeki actor known for his "Oppekepee-bushi" (a Japanese folk song), and later a villa owned by industrialist Yasusaburo Hara.

The museum currently houses approximately 2,000 works of art, mainly by artists and works associated with Chigasaki. In recent years, the museum has actively collected works by emerging artists based in Kanagawa and is striving to create a collection that is full of Shonan's unique character. The museum also holds ambitious exhibitions of foreign and young artists.

Between the Wavesー What Does it Mean to Have a Museum?