Stadtkirche St Dionys

The Stadtkirche St Dionys on the Marktplatz is a Late Gothic hall church with a striking pair of asymmetrical towers. Construction began in the 12th century on the foundations of an even earlier Carolingian church, and the building was expanded and modified over the following three centuries. The interior is spacious and comparatively unadorned — a result of the Reformation — but retains carved stonework, a fine late-medieval font, and several memorial tablets from prominent Esslingen families.

The church stands as a reminder that Esslingen was a free Imperial City for more than five hundred years, with the wealth and civic confidence to build imposing religious architecture directly on its market square. Combined with the Frauenkirche directly opposite, the two churches frame the Marktplatz and make it one of the most photographed civic spaces in southern Germany.

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A story
The Stadtkirche St Dionys incorporates the walls of a much older Carolingian structure, making it one of the oldest continuously used church sites in the Stuttgart region. Its two towers are a quirk of building history: one dates to the 12th century and the other to the 14th, and they differ markedly in style and height. The church was stripped of its Catholic furnishings during the Reformation in 1531 and has been Protestant ever since, though fragments of medieval frescoes survive in the choir.