After talking about the Chappe Art House for about an hour, searching for the right words in English to describe the 13,000-square-foot museum carefully inserted into the scenic town of Tammisaari on the southern coast of Finland, Asmo Jaaksi lands on the phrase “humble but brave.” One of the founding partners of JKMM, the Helsinki-based architecture firm that has designed high-profile projects such as the Amos Rex Museum and the Academy of Fine Arts, both in Helsinki, and the Seinäjoki Library in Western Finland, Jaaksi talks about the difficulty of adding a contemporary art museum, even a small one, to a seaside town founded in 1546 and famous for its charming 18th-century wood architecture. “There aren’t many opportunities to build in a place like this,” he explains. “We needed to create something in balance with the town.”