Asamkirche: The Private Church of Two Brothers
Why is it significant?
Between the shop windows of Sendlinger Straße, a church front is squeezed in like a jewel box forced into a row of ordinary houses: rough painted rocks at its base, and above the door a saint being carried up to heaven by angels. Step inside for a moment, let your eyes adjust... and then look up.
Key Facts
| Place | Asamkirche: The Private Church of Two Brothers |
|---|---|
| Address | Sendlinger Straße 32, 80331 München, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.13520, 11.56950 |
| Part of Walk | Salt, Beer and Pretzels: A Food Lover's Walk Through Munich's Old Town |
| Generated | Generated |
Between the shop windows of Sendlinger Straße, a church front is squeezed in like a jewel box forced into a row of ordinary houses: rough painted rocks at its base, and above the door a saint being carried up to heaven by angels. Step inside for a moment, let your eyes adjust... and then look up.
This is St. Johann Nepomuk, which everyone calls the Asamkirche. It was built between 1733 and 1746 by two brothers, Egid Quirin Asam, a sculptor and stucco artist, and Cosmas Damian Asam, a painter. The plot is barely wider than a townhouse, so they built upwards. Down at the pews it is dark and heavy, the earthly world. Your gaze rises through gold, marble and twisting columns towards the light pouring in from the top, the heavenly one. It is less a building than a single total work of art, and it is almost too much... deliberately.
Here is the detail most visitors miss. Egid Quirin lived in the house right next door, and he had a window opened from his home so that he could look straight onto the high altar. A private church, a private view of heaven, without even putting on his shoes.
The people of Munich did not like the idea of a private church on a public street, and the brothers had to open it to everyone. The saint above the door was also a very fresh choice at the time. John of Nepomuk was a priest from Prague, thrown into the Vltava river in 1393, and he had only been made a saint in 1729, a few years before the building started.
Why bring a church onto a food walk? Because Bavaria does not do anything halfway... not its beer, not its sausages, and not its Baroque. This is the same appetite for abundance, carved in stone and stucco. Now walk east through St.-Jakobs-Platz, past the city museum and the new synagogue, and on towards a long hall of iron and glass at the edge of the market.