You will find completely equipped groups of buildings surrounded by historical utilisable space of land like gardens, meadows, pasture and acres. They were set up according to aspects of settlement geography and show examples of the variety of landscapes, time periods, as well as social and architectural differences concerning building, dwelling forms and economic activities in this part of the country. Historical prototypes for all parts of Westphalia have been and will be built . For the “Münsterland”, for instance, we show single farmsteads according to the Münsterland’s local form of housing schemes, for Minden, Ravensberg, Lippe and Osnabrück there are groups of farmsteads, for the Paderborn region, there is a village surrounding a church and a fortified churchyard, and for the Sauerland we assembled a hamlet. For the Siegen-Wittgenstein region we are planning a small village, whose chapel-school can already be visited on our museum site. We do, however, not reconstruct archaeological discoveries. Social differences can be seen when comparing farmsteads and rental cottages, flats and houses of retired farmers, craftsmen's houses, manor houses and farmhand dwellings, as well as burghers’ homes in villages. Functional buildings like schools, fire engine houses or a photographic studio give insights into the life of the community.
Some of our buildings – freed from recent components – reflect the picture of their original state, others are shown in their state after centuries of use. In order to reveal their functional relationship, all objects in a house are presented at their typical places and in their original context.