Ecomusée d'Alsace

Alsace Ecomuseum - History

The founding of the Alsace Ecomuseum: a singular adventure

In 1971, a handful of voluntary workers from the organisation ”Maisons Paysannes d’Alsace“
campaigned to conserve and restore rural dwellings that were scheduled for demolition. Since it was
impossible to keep some of them in the same place, the volunteers came up with what seemed like a
crazy idea: they would dismantle the houses and rebuild them in an identical way in another location.
In 1980, the decision was made to locate the project on wasteland halfway between Mulhouse and
Colmar. By 1984, some twenty buildings were already rebuilt and they were opened to the public.
The Alsace Ecomuseum was born