The cultural life in Leverkusen is unusual in more than in one aspect: There are two cultural programmes in every season. Visiting orchestras, ensembles and individual artists of international standing form an alternative to the permanent stages in the neighbouring large cities. For nearly two decades the international Jazz days attract thousands of visitors to Leverkusen once a year.

The museum Castle Morsbroich is able to show a collection of modern art, which is without comparison. In addition numerous clubs are active in our city, whose members make music, paint, sculpture to act — and that partly at an extremely high level. All exists in the shadow of the two cities Cologne and Düsseldorf, without being absorbed by them.

The cultural life in Leverkusen starts with clubs:
Around the turn of the century the first music work clubs of the Bayer-Farben factories were founded, among them the Bayer-Wind Band, the string orchestra (the present Bayer-Philharmonic), the men's choir, the further education club and the dramatic association, the subsequent little theatre — Werkbühne Bayer. The educational clubs are being supported by the plant management.

In 1908 the recreation house of the Bayer AG was opened, where soon external artists would perform. And so on the 31st of January 1913 Ludwig Ganghofer read from his own works for example. Very early on one tried to, stimulated by the diverse cultural activities of the colour factories, create a communal counterbalance. Over time urban culture facilities arose: music school, library, adult education, museum, youth art groups.

In 1925, shortly before the city Leverkusen was founded, dignitaries from the former town of Wiesdorf (today city centre) undertook the successful attempt to create the base for an urban concert life.

But only in 1969 did the city Leverkusen built a pendant to the Bayer-recreation-house — the Forum. The then Prime Minister Heinz Kühn formulated the importance of this building for the city's identity precisely: 'The Forum shows that Leverkusen is not a factory owning a city but the Forum is a sign 'that the city reaches more and more the position providing sense and content to its existence”.