Welcome to the Museum Bassermannhaus für Musik und Kunst

The Museum Bassermannhaus für Musik und Kunst was opened in 2011. The Bassermann-Kulturstiftung Mannheim fully funded the construction of the building and now covers the museum’s operating expenses and supports its substantive program with its endowment. The exhibition “MusikWelten” is devoted to a theme of human civilization about which the Bassermann family of benefactors is especially passionate. The Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen’s significant collection of over 1.600 European and non-European musical instruments is the basis of the exhibition. Among other things, it includes the largest collection of pre-Columbian musical instruments outside the American continent. It was donated by Dieter and Evamaria Freudenberg. The exhibition impressively documents music’s importance to human cultures all over the world with altogether 230 exceptional objects, from unusual Aztec whistling vessels to courtly orchestral instruments from Europe, India,
Africa and Japan.