Created in 1919, the museum is located inside a former townhouse, the Hôtel Mistral de Montdragon, which dates from the Renaissance period and is classified as an historical landmark. An architectural specimen of great quality, the building boasts a remarkable interior courtyard. Its collections are divided into four sections: archeology, natural sciences, ethnology, graphic arts and photography. The exhibition offers a journey through time and space and was conceived with the intention of fostering an understanding and respect of today's natural and human landscapes in this portion of Provence that lies between the Rhone, the Durance, and the southern limit of the Alpilles mountains. It evokes the various facets of the region's heritage: fauna from the distant past (fossils) and present (cicadas), bottom-soil exploitation (quarries and pottery), millenary commercial and agricultural activities (olive trees, wine vineyards, cereals and sheep) and more recent ones (teasel, seed sprouts, forced vegetables), traditional dress and festivals, and Camarguian bullfighting. The cabinet of photography and graphic arts as well as the typography and engraving workshop represent a new direction taken by the establishment as regards works on paper and contemporary engraving. The Alpilles Museum is a societal museum. Its discipline of reference is ethnology. One of its primary concerns is to bring attention to the modest arts.