Asamkirche

Also known as St.-Johann-Nepomuk-Kirche

Egid Quirin Asam lived next door and designed a window in his private residence that gave him a direct view of the altar from his bedroom. That single detail explains what the Asamkirche is: a private devotional space built by two brothers with their own money and filled with the most intense Baroque decoration they could manage.

The Asamkirche on Sendlinger Strasse is a late-Baroque (gold, white stucco, ceiling frescoes making the vault appear to open to heaven) private chapel built by the Asam brothers with their own money between 1733 and 1746. Every surface is decorated; the four spiral columns at the high altar deliberately echo Bernini’s baldachin in St. Peter’s. Egid Quirin Asam lived next door and designed a window giving him an altar view from his bedroom. Free to enter; 10 minutes on foot from Marienplatz. One of the most intense Baroque interiors in Germany and free. Tram to Sendlinger Tor or walk south from the Marienplatz.