Beethoven House

Ludwig van Beethoven was born in the attic room of this house in December 1770 and lived in Bonn until moving to Vienna at twenty-two. By the 1880s the building was a run-down inn facing demolition; twelve Bonn citizens formed an association in 1889, bought it and opened it as a museum, which the same association still runs. The collection is the largest on the composer anywhere, with manuscripts, letters, instruments including his last grand piano, and the ear trumpets made for him as his hearing failed from his late twenties onward. A digital archive and a studio for listening occupy adjoining buildings.

Background

The house at Bonngasse 20 went up around 1700 on an older cellar vault and has a baroque stone facade. During the first half of the 19th century a smaller timbered house was added behind it, and at times five families lived there, with three tailors and a shoemaker keeping shops. Around 1840 Beethoven's friend Franz Gerhard Wegeler and the teacher Carl Moritz Kneisel identified the back part as his birthplace, and in 1873 a restaurant opened on the ground floor. The association bought number 22 in 1893 and number 18 in 1907, one of the oldest 18th-century buildings left in Bonn, and the Beethoven archive moved there in 1927. Both houses became a historic monument in 1985.

Source: Wikipedia, "Beethoven House"

What to look for

• The birth room - the attic where he was born in December 1770.
• The ear trumpets - devices made as his hearing deteriorated.
• The last grand piano - an instrument from his final years.
• The manuscripts - the largest Beethoven collection in the world.

When to go

Year-round; the museum closes Mondays in winter. The Beethovenfest runs in Bonn in September. Booking is sensible in anniversary years.

Before you go

The house is small and can feel crowded. It closes some Mondays. Much of the collection is documents rather than objects.

Nearby

Cologne lies north; the Rhine runs beside the city.

Key facts