St. Matthäuskirche, Romanesque Revival church in Tiergarten, Germany.
St. Matthäuskirche is a brick church with three naves of equal height, each with its own gable and saddle roof, built of yellow-red banded brick from the Borchmann brickworks in Rathenow. A slender square tower with open sound arcades closes the central nave to the north; each nave ends in a windowless apse to the south. The design follows northern Italian Romanesque models.
A church building association founded on 5 October 1843 commissioned the church; Friedrich Wilhelm IV granted the building permit on 27 January 1844, and the architect Friedrich August Stüler, assisted by Hermann Alexander Wentzel, designed it after North Italian Romanesque models. It was consecrated on 17 May 1846. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was ordained here on 15 November 1931. Damaged in the war, it was rebuilt externally between 1956 and 1960 under Jürgen and Paul Emmerich.
The church serves as a venue for concerts and art exhibitions, drawing visitors interested in contemporary cultural events beyond traditional worship. Beyond its religious function, the space has become an important gathering point for cultural exchange in Berlin.
The church is easily reached near public transit stations in the Mitte district of Berlin. Visitors can attend regular services or take guided tours to learn about the architectural features on site.
The bricks carry the stamp of the Borchmann brickworks in Rathenow, and the church is not oriented east as usual: its long axis runs north to south because the land was donated that way. The slender tower was only given its present top after Gisela Breitling won the 1987/1988 competition for its redesign.
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