Französische Friedrichstadtkirche

The Französische Friedrichstadtkirche stands on the Gendarmenmarkt, a square in Berlin's Mitte district. Huguenot refugees from France settled here, putting up homes and religious buildings beside Bohemian and Salzburg neighbours. Jean Louis Cayart drew the plans for their church, the foundation stone followed in 1701, and Abraham Quesnay completed it in 1705.

A domed tower rises on the church's east side, added in 1785 on the order of Frederick II of Prussia. Many people call the whole ensemble the Französischer Dom, although that Dom is a tower, not a cathedral. The Huguenots received perpetual free use of the tower. In 1905 a neobaroque renovation moved the entrance and altered the interior. The Second World War damaged the church badly. A church building programme in the former East Germany funded the rebuilding between 1978 and 1983, which followed the neobaroque design.

The interior follows the reformed tradition: a pulpit and a communion table stand in place of an altar. The first organ arrived in the mid-eighteenth century, and the 1985 reconstruction opened it to French organ music of that era. The Evangelical Academy in Berlin and other organisations stage events here. The building is wheelchair accessible, and a restaurant keeps it lively. Three centuries after the first stone, the Huguenot community and a French-speaking Protestant congregation hold services here in French.