NIHON-KOHGEIKAN was established in 1950 for the purpose of preserving Devel-oping,and popularising traditional handicrafts (MINGEI) that has a long history in this Country. The original museum was located in the former rice granary at Doh-jima, kita-ku, Osaka.In 1960, in commemoration of the 10th anniversary the museum was moved to the present site. Anytime, anywhere MINGEI works are produced by unknown craftsmen to be used by people in every-day life. They are not only useful but also beautiful. NIHON-KOHGEIKAN has been trying to preserve, develop, and popularize the craft of pro-ducing contemporary MINGEI works and to contribute to creating beauty in every-day life of the general public. The MINGEI works on display here are traditional handicraft products brought forth in the culture and nature of this country and are now highly appreciated worldwide. Now please enjoy yourself appreciating the use and beauty of the MINGEI works of Japanese handicraft culture.

I call life tools the industrial arts with a handicraft. "Business and the beauty" are generally considered to be industrial arts. There are ceramics, a japanner, metalworking, woodwork, dyeing and weaving, glass as an industrial field. A law about the promotion of the traditional industrial art object industry was established in 1974, and it was called a product produced by technology technique to have the traditional history more than 100 years with an industrial art object of the tradition. I am under the protection of the country, and it is inherited until today to maintain the tradition. The much technology and technique root as Japanese culture, and it is the gift that technical technique has been inherited that I can maintain it as a lot of cultural assets until today.

The folk handicraft is the abbreviated designation word of the industrial art object of the people.
The folk handicraft is the product which met the demand of the living with the life tool of the common people. (Daily necessity)
The thing which is cheap as practical simplicity / faithfulness / crafts a healthy body with the folk handicraft.
I inherit technical technique conveyed by ancestors with the folk handicraft and I adapt myself in the times and produce it. (A folkcraft)
A nameless artisan makes the articles which are faithful to business as the subject with a person for with the folk handicraft. (The work that does not run after the beauty)
It is produced with the folk handicraft by not only the personal power but also division of labor or cooperation. (An outside help way)
A folk handicraft is the work that does not run after the beauty, but produces beautiful quality run after in the beauty. (The beauty that I do not devise)

Chuichi Miyake was impressed with the book "way (1928) of Muneyoshi Yanagi of the industrial arts" and participated in a folk handicraft movement from about 1935. It was entrusted the investigation of the folk handicraft in Hokkaido after the war from Yanagi and played an active part as one of the central members of association of Japanese folk handicraft. I became the manager of the Suehiro head office (a restaurant) of Osaka and devised "shabu-shabu" while I was engaged in a folk handicraft movement and showed unusual abilities as a businessman. I built the Japanese industrial arts building as an exercise foothold of the association of Japanese folk handicraft Osaka branch office in 1950 and I published "Japanese industrial arts" in 1955 and promoted a folk handicraft movement. However, I energized, but I withdrew from association of Japanese folk handicraft from a disagreement with Mr. willow in 1959 and I raised a newly person of the same interest and established NIHON-MINGEI-KYODAN. As faith of Chuichi Miyake, a folk handicraft and the arts and crafts flew about national each place in a meaning to divide another thing and thought, this from a folk handicraft and I taught the production of the folk handicraft and encouraged it to you. With the establishment of NIHON-MINGEI-KYODAN, I carry out a policy to promote the production of the production center energetically in sequence, and it is a pioneer of the folk handicraft exercise that it takes in a folk handicraft for the life of the people, and allotted a life for beautification exercise of the life of the people and the development of the straight production center.

I want to be the folk handicraft movement that I am hard to quit after starting and am not inferior to reputation, predecessors in the family line in of a great leader, but my motto must not put out the fire of the folk handicraft. Because I store the traditional industry that was born and raised in our country and want to concentrate power on upbringing of the successor, I think that I want a lot of fellows gather and to show big power. I want to carry out that any kind of thing begins with one step