Paul Sacher Stiftung

The Paul Sacher Foundation was founded in 1973. At first its purpose was to preserve Paul Sacher's musical library. A short while later the holdings began to be systematically expanded, and its purpose started to change. Today, the Foundation is an international research center for the music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with some hundred estates and collections from leading composers and performers.

The main purpose of the Paul Sacher Foundation resides in the optimum care and study of its source materials. The Foundation also facilitates and supports scholarly research into its archival holdings by granting access to the documents available on its premises. All the technical and organizational prerequisites necessary to fulfill this purpose have been taken care of.

Thus, the building is equipped with several reading rooms, offices, storage depots, and a special air-conditioned storeroom to house the original documents.

The Foundation has also built up a large library specializing in twentieth- and twenty-first-century music. Like the associated record library and video collection, this library is kept up-to-date on a regular basis to ensure that the standard literature is always ready to hand. The Foundation also engages in the scholarly investigation and study of its holdings through projects and publications of its own.