St. Martin's, whose congregation was founded in 1883, was the largest church building project in the city and the largest for the American Lutheran Church when constructed. The complex contains a chapel, offices, gymnasium, fellowship hall, and youth rooms. The lean forms of the tall steel columns, thin roof edges, and the high, cruciform-shaped tower reflect an appropriately Lutheran, Scandinavian influence, while the grand arches of its barrel-vaulted roof and entrance canopies evoke an abstraction of Romanesque architecture, referring to the church's patron saint, St. Martin of Tours.