The museum is housed in the former property of the banker Albert Kahn (1860-1940). It is home to the Archives de la Planète, this great philanthropist's most famous collection, which counts some 72 000 photographs, 4 000 autochrome plates and numerous films. It is a tremendous record of daily, economic, social, religious and political life in the 19C all over the world. In addition, the gardens are presented as a "world map" in line with an approach consisting of dialogue between peoples.