The museum houses the largest collection of Beethoven artifacts in the world, including music manuscripts, letters, images, busts, instruments, and everyday items. In addition to exhibitions, visitors have found since 2004 in the adjacent Digital Beethoven House a studio and a stage for music visualization. The Beethoven-Haus Bonn association was founded 125 years ago at the composer's birthplace. It operates the museum, the research center with archive, the library, the chamber music hall, and the publishing house, thus combining and concentrating scholarly and popular engagement with Beethoven.
When the association celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1989, the new building conceived by the Cologne architect Thomas van den Valentyn was introduced, integrating the various departments and demands. The centerpiece is the Hermann J. Abs chamber music hall (in memory of the patron and long-time association president). With the amphitheater space in a semicircle, acoustically excellent and staged with magical light, the old tradition of chamber music festivals could be revived in a contemporary manner. The Beethoven Archive Research Institute, founded in 1927, is the central documentation center for the biography and works of the great "van", his intellectual circle, and the history of impact. It collects evidence, provides advisory services, publishes, and conducts academic work.
