The Piano Museum (钢琴博物馆) on Gulangyu occupies a garden villa near the island's western shore and holds a collection of around 100 historic pianos, the majority donated by Hu Youyi, an overseas Chinese collector from Australia. The instruments span four centuries and include elaborate 19th-century concert grands, small square pianos from the early 1800s, and a series of mechanical self-playing pianos with original cylinder mechanisms.
The museum is a logical expression of Gulangyu's unusual musical history — the island became a centre of Western classical music through the missionary schools of the 19th century and produced a disproportionate share of China's concert pianists. The adjacent Organ Museum holds a collection of rare pipe organs, some of them too large for a building and displayed in the open air. The two museums together make a pleasantly odd morning on an island that already has more history per square metre than most places in China.