“It is meaningless to build an art museum if you are going to imitate others,” says Ryu Niimi, director of the new Oita Prefectural Art Museum. “If you are not determined to build something unique, and like nothing else, to exist only in Oita, then it is meaningless.”

With that bold mission statement, the OPAM (as it is abbreviated), the "Museum of Five Senses," (as it is being proclaimed) opened to visitors in April of 2015.