Paul Löbe Parliamentary Building in Berlin

The Paul Löbe building, situated close to the Reichstag, contains roughly 1,000 offices androoms for members of the German parliament, as well as conference halls and two restaurants. It forms the first stage of a two-part development that also includes the Marie-Elisabeth Lüders building on the opposite bankof the River Spree. The winning competition scheme by the Munich architect Stephan Braunfels complies with the master plan drawnup by Axel Schultes. The new building has a comb-like layout, with open, landscaped courtyards to north and south. As part of the concept of transparency on which the design isbased, the conference spaces housed in therotundas are visible from the outside. Aneight-storey hall, extending over the entire length of the building in an east-west direction, is a further expression of this concept. Covered by a glazed, grid roof, the hall terminates at itseastern and western ends in broad areas ofglazing. These open up a view from the forum through the entire complex to the Marie-Elisabeth Lüders building on the other side of the Spree, thus accentuating the urban links between the two developments. The buildings are also connected by a two-storey bridge. Inaddition, the Paul Löbe building is linked tothe Reichstag by a basement pedestrian tunnel, and the entire parliamentary district is connected by a 500-metre-long underground access system.