Paul Loebe House, Berlin, Germany2018 (photo)

Paul Loebe House, Germany, Berlin. The glass-and-concrete Paul-Löbe-Haus houses offices for the Bundestag's parliamentary committees. From above it looks like a double-sided comb and on the inside there's an atrium long enough to be a bowling alley for giants. It's linked by a double footbridge to the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus across the Spree in a visual symbol of reunification. Opening hours vary, depending on parliamentary use. The building named after Paul Löbe, President of Germany's Reichstag from 1924 - 32, is one of the most impressive federal government buildings on Berlin's Spreebogen riverbank. Providing 32,000 m² of floor space distributed over eight storeys, the complex houses 550 offices for 275 parliamentarians, 21 meeting rooms for committees, with various visitors' galleries, 400 offices, 8 seminar rooms, two restaurants and the headquarters of the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union. Transparency meets solidity Despite the building's massive structural dimensions, its architect, Stephan Braunfels, succeeded in creating a design of filigree lightness for the parliament of the German Bundestag. The Munich architect, whose design convinced the jury in the competition for the contract to design and construct the building, relies largely on the use of glass. All of the building's eight storeys are enclosed in an elongated hall, whose house-high glass walls provide views into and through it. The committee rooms, also situated in rotundas, can be looked into from the hall, giving an impression of openness and transparency. Huge, 23 metre-high porches held up by slender columns represent a further decisive style element. These not only emphasise the building's east-west orientation, they also correspond with the structure of the Marie-Elisabeth Lüders Building on the opposite bank of the River Spree. This architectural device has helped create an appealing interconnected ensemble, which is linked by a bridge. To avoid d