Theatinerkirche: Munich’s Beautiful Yellow Landmark

I am a sucker for a bit of photographic color, even if my own wardrobe runs to earth tones and fifty shades of black. This shot catches the yellow Baroque facade head-on, with red and purple flowers in the foreground and Odeonsplatz doing its usual weekday churn behind it. The bikes were not staged because, in Munich, they never are. The Short Version The Theatine Church of St. Cajetan is one of the easiest buildings in Munich to recognize and one of the harder ones to walk past. Twin towers, a high dome, and a facade the color of good butter. I have used it more than once as a navigation aid, the way other people use a phone. If you can see the yellow towers, you know roughly where you are. It went up between 1663 and 1690, built to an Italian design at a time when Munich mostly was not. This is quite literally a piece of Rome that somehow ended up in Bavaria. Why It’s Here Elector Ferdinand Maria and his wife, Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, commissioned the church as a thank-you for an heir. Prince Max Emanuel arrived in 1662 after a long wait, and the cornerstone went down the following spring. Henriette Adelaide was from Turin and wanted something Italian, which is how Munich ended up with a church modeled on a Roman one rather than anything local. The facts, if you like them tidy: Cornerstone laid in 1663, under Ferdinand Maria and Henriette Adelaide of Savoy. Designed by the Italian architect Agostino Barelli in the High Baroque style, after Sant’Andrea della Valle in Rome. Enrico Zuccalli added the twin towers and finished the dome in 1690. Neither was in the original plan. The yellow facade came roughly a century later, designed by François de Cuvilliés the Elder around 1765 and finished by his son. The crypt holds the Wittelsbach royal tombs, including Max Emanuel, the child the church was built to celebrate, and Emperor Charles VII. Inside The underlying design for the Theatinerkirche is one of contrast. Bold ochre outside, and then you step through the door and it all goes white. The interior is high Baroque worked over in pale stucco, cool and bright, with the dome opening up overhead. After that facade you expect more of the same and get the opposite. It is the best reason to actually go in rather than photograph the towers and move on, which is what most of the crowd on Odeonsplatz does. How to Visit Location. Odeonsplatz, in the center of Munich. Getting there. U-Bahn to Odeonsplatz, which leaves you almost at the door. Entry. Free, with a donation box that the building earns. Hours. Generally open daily through the day, but times shift with services and the season, so check before a special trip. One tip worth the ink. Go inside for the white interior. The yellow is the half everyone already knows from postcards. More to See Nearby Odeonsplatz is a good place to be slightly greedy. The Residenz, the Wittelsbach city palace for centuries and now a sprawling museum, sits a two-minute walk away and is worth at least an afternoon. Carry on north and the English Garden opens up, one of the largest city parks in Europe, with the Chinese Tower beer garden somewhere in the middle of it. You can see the church, tour a palace, and finish the day with a beer under the trees without ever calling a cab. Common Questions Why is the Theatinerkirche yellow?It was not always. The church stood in plain stone for about a century before Cuvilliés added the ochre Rococo facade in the 1760s. The color was a later decision, which is why it stands out so sharply from everything around it. Can you go inside?Yes, and you should. Entry is free and the white Rococo interior is the better half of the building. Fine stucco work, a calm room, and far fewer people than the square outside. What makes it different from Munich’s other churches?Three things. It is Italian where most of the city’s older churches are Gothic or Romanesque. It is yellow, which almost no German church is. And it is a Wittelsbach burial place, so the people who ran Bavaria for centuries are downstairs. Before You Go That is the church. Easy to find, free to enter, and a useful yellow marker for the rest of your day in Munich. If you only ever photograph it from the square, you will have seen the famous half and missed the better one.

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Theatinerkirche: Munich’s Beautiful Yellow Landmark

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