The house at Bilker Straße 15 was the residence of the musician couple Robert and Clara Schumann and their children from 1852 to 1855. It is the only residence of the family that has been preserved with its historic building stock. Clara Schumann had her own study room here, which gave her the opportunity to compose again after an interruption of several years and to work as a piano teacher. Robert Schumann created almost a third of his complete compositional works during the Rhenish years. Important parts of the building have hardly been changed in the past 100 years: In the former living quarters of the Schumanns on the first floor, the old doors with forged fittings from around 1800 have been preserved, as have the historic floorboards and stucco. Due to its special historical significance, the building is currently being renovated, extended and converted in line with the requirements of a listed building - and furnished to become the Schumann Museum. High-calibre pieces from the Heinrich Heine Institute's extensive Schumann collection will be displayed here.

In 1972, the house at Bilker Straße 14 in Düsseldorf's Carlstadt was initially rented by the city to house the newly founded Heinrich Heine Institute and the Heinrich Heine Study Center. After renovation work and partial use, both were opened on 13 December 1974, on the occasion of Heine's 177th birthday. Later, the neighboring building at Bilker Straße 12 was added. In 1988, the two buildings were connected; since then, they have housed the Heinrich Heine Institute which was enlarged on this occasion and to which the annex and the former "Artothek" in the backyard also belong. With around 120 estates and collections, the Heine Institute is rich in archival treasures on Heinrich Heine, Robert and Clara Schumann, the Düsseldorf School of Painting, and even Rose Ausländer and Dieter Forte. Under the title "Romanticism and Revolution," it presents the only permanent exhibition on the life and work of Heinrich Heine, the poet and cosmopolitan born in Düsseldorf in 1797. In the future, the Heinrich Heine Institute will be part of the "Road of Romanticism and Revolution" ensemble.