A colourful glass facade for German MPs

05/26/2022 | Print view

The new building with its colourful glass facade has an H-shaped floor plan. - © Glas Marte — © Glas Marte

The new building with its colourful glass facade has an H-shaped floor plan.

The German Bundestag is getting new offices for members of parliament. The new building consists of wooden modules clad with a colourful glass facade. The glass elements were supplied by Glas Marte. Here are the details.

The colourful glass elements were supplied by Glas Marte. Twelve different colours were used.

With its 736 MPs, the current Bundestag is one of the largest freely elected parliaments in the world. Given that each member of parliament is entitled to three offices of about 18 square metres, this results in a space requirement of about 40,000 square metres. To meet this demand, a new building was constructed: the Luisenblock.

The contract for its construction was awarded to the bidding consortium consisting of the project developer Primus developments, the timber construction specialist Kaufmann Bausysteme and the architectural firm Sauerbruch Hutton. The result: a building with a modular timber construction and a lot of glass in the facade.

How the facade is constructed

The facade is made of recycled aluminium and coloured glass and thus shows the design signature of the Sauerbruch Hutton architectural firm. Their employees planned a total of 1300 glass elements.

The facade is made of recycled aluminium and coloured glass, and a total of 1300 glass elements were installed.

[Glas Marte: Bonded glass to withstand heavy snow loads]

Glas Marte from Bregenz was commissioned with the production of the glass elements. One of the most important guidelines of the glass specialist is to keep the glass proportion as large as possible, the fastening elements filigree and the assembly effort small. As the company had already worked closely with Sauerbruch Hutton on another project, the planners had fond memories of it.

The majority of the 6.75 m long and 3.2 m wide elements were manufactured in Berlin-Köpenick - about 20 km from the construction site.

Which glass was used?

According to the specifications, the glass specialist supplied about 1900 square metres of monoglass (approx. 59 t), 12 mm LSG/ESG as well as 12 mm ESG-H - each with a special screen-print pattern.

It took only 27 months from the planning stage to the completion of the building ready for occupancy.

[Record-breaking XXL laminated glass pane]

One of the biggest challenges was the colour design of the glass elements. The actual colours to be used were not certain at the beginning, so their formulas had to be developed first.

The installation of the glass elements was carried out by the Kaufmann company. To facilitate the installation, Glas Marte developed special glass holders that were precisely adapted to the installation situation.

The 18 x 19 m atrium facade (including steel substructure), shading louvres and SHEVS ventilation wings were fitted with a total of 96 Uniglas insulating glass panes. The steel louvres are inclined by 60 degrees and were designed in such a way that they do not cast any shadows.

[A very special kind of fall-protection glass]

The glass specialist was also involved in the 71 x 7 m technical room facade, which consists of toughened safety glass installed with the help of GM Glassic-U edge connectors. This fastening system was integrated into the edge seal by Glas Marte in such a way that nothing but glass is visible during the finished installation. The installation of the glass elements took around two months.

This short period corresponds to the high speed with which the entire building was erected. From planning to ready-for-occupancy completion, those responsible needed only 27 months.

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