The LWL-Freilichtmuseum Detmold at the foot of Teutoburg Forest is the largest open-air museum in Germany. The museum has around 120 historic buildings on an area of over 90 hectares drawn from all social classes and regions of Westphalia. You can see fully equipped groups of buildings surrounded by historic utilisable areas such as gardens, meadows, fields and pastures. These exemplarily show the agricultural, chronological, social and architecturally historic variations of our region. Groups of buildings for all Westphalian sub-landscapes have been prepared and are currently being established.

With respect to the increasing disappearance particularly of agricultural buildings that characterised Westphalian landscapes across several centuries, the Westphalian Parliament of the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL) decided on 22 July 1960 to establish an open-air museum in Detmold. A decision was taken to use the zoo grounds of the former Princes zur Lippe. Building work began in 1966. The open-air museum was inaugurated on 7 July 1971. The first buildings were the Osnabrücker Hof, the Mindener Hof with main building and five ancillary buildings, the Doppelheuerhaus, the Tecklenburger Kotten and the Münsterländer Gräftenhof.

Folkloric collection of objects from everyday and festive culture as well as the cultural and social history of all population groups of the Westphalian sub-regions from the Late Middle Ages to contemporary times.

These also include inventories of the Prussian Province of Westphalia from the 19th century (e.g. objects from Minden, a school building from Thöningsen and other buildings, documents relating to agricultural crop production and livestock breeding);