Readers on their first visit to the city of Valencia and to this Museum, today located in a former Vincentian convent, may find it hard to understand what exactly a falla is and what this Museum means. Basically, fallas can be described as satirical monuments. They are models made of combustible materials (cardboard, wood, etc.) that are erected in public squares and at main crossroads and then burnt on the night of 19 March, St Joseph's Day.

The monuments are made by specialist falleros with the help and encouragement of resident's committees in all the different districts that spend the whole year preparing the annual festivities. On completion, each fallero chooses the figure he considers the most successful and, a few weeks before the plantà when the monuments are moved out to the streets, all of these figures (ninots) are placed on display. The general public can then vote for the ninot they consider the most attractive, clever or amusing and it is then saved from the fire.

The winning ninots (one from the large fallas and another from the children's ones) are brought to this museum to be displayed alongside photos of the best fallas and prize-winning posters, in turn becoming a monument to popular culture and to the annual Valencian fiesta of the Fallas.

One of the Museum's halls with ninots dating from the 1930s to 1950s