Ichihara Lakeside Museum

A 1990s municipal sculpture museum on the shore of a reservoir in inland Chiba was, by the early 2010s, the kind of place that quietly closes. Instead the city had it rebuilt — the existing concrete shell wrapped in perforated steel plate, with new terraces cut out toward the water — and reopened it in 2013 with a programme that treats the whole surrounding region as the exhibition space.

It is now the anchor of the Ichihara Art Mix triennial, which puts work into closed schools and disused buildings along the Kominato Railway. The museum itself is small, with a permanent collection at ¥200 and changing exhibitions priced separately, and the terraces over Takataki lake are as much of the visit as the galleries. It sits directly on the railway line that crosses the peninsula, which makes it a natural stop rather than a detour.