An open two-phase design competition for teams of architects and landscape architects will be held for the construction of a new visitor and information centre for the German Bundestag in Berlin by the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning on behalf of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety. The occasion for this is the decision adopted in early November by the Council of Elders of the German Bundestag concerning the construction of the visitor and information centre south of Scheidemannstraße. The decision on the construction and location of the future visitor and information centre was a product of a joint process of coordination involving the Bundestag, the Federal Ministry for the Environment and Building and the Land of Berlin after an extensive feasibility study was carried out.
At its meeting on 5 November 2015, the Council of Elders of the German Bundestag decided to build a visitor and information centre near Scheidemannstraße in the area of the Tiergarten park. This marks the completion of the detailed enquiries into different locations and the related reviews of technical and functional feasibility, which had been initiated in the last legislative period.
The current provisional security check building is to be replaced with an architecturally and functionally appropriate permanent solution by constructing a visitor and information centre with around 6600 square metres of gross floor space as a central entrance for visitors at the Platz der Republik. There will also be space for a flexible reception and information area, rooms for seminars and discussion events and food-and-beverage services for the approximately 2.4 million people who visit the German Bundestag annually.
The objective is to take account in the future of the continued high level of public interest in visiting the German Bundestag with its dome and in information about parliamentary work and to do so with the required level of quality.
Berlin's Senate Department for Urban Development and Environment supports the competition and the construction of a visitor and information centre for the German Bundestag. The unique character of the Reichstag building, an impressive monument, as a jewel in an urban setting will be enhanced through urban planning measures. The location for the new entrance has been moved to the edge of the Tiergarten; a decision was unanimously reached after compression of the spatial planning programme while taking the various interests into consideration. The necessary development plan process, which will be carried out by the Senate Department for Urban Development and Environment, will establish the legal planning requirements for the construction of the visitor and information centre with a pedestrian tunnel to the ramp in front of the Reichstag.
The location of the future visitor and information centre for the German Bundestag at the edge of the Großer Tiergarten is bordered by the Scheidemannstraße, from the area of the Soviet War Memorial and by Simsonweg, Kleiner Querallee and Zeltenallee. Connecting the visitor and information centre to the Reichstag Building with an enclosed pedestrian tunnel means that only one security checkpoint for visitors is needed. The location and course of the visitors tunnel through the dense underground network of railway lines and technical infrastructure is predetermined for structural engineering reasons.
In the spatial planning programme, which has been considerably streamlined compared to previous plans, the various requirements regarding conservation and open space planning were taken into account in addition to the security aspects already mentioned. In particular, it will fit in with Tiergarten park, which is a garden monument. The Council of Elders set the cost ceiling for the building at 150 million euros.
Specific plans for the project go as far back as the previous legislature. In 2011 the Commission of the Council of Elders of the German Bundestag responsible for construction and spatial planning affairs commissioned preliminary studies on possible locations and concepts.
The feasibility study produced by the Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning, the results of which are supported jointly by all participants, now forms the basis for the interdisciplinary open two-phase design competition. Interdisciplinary teams of architects and landscape architects can participate around the world.
In the first phase of the competition, which is scheduled to be completed in May 2016, participants are asked to provide initial fundamental solution proposals. The 25 to 30 most fitting proposals will be worked on in depth in the second phase. The final jury meeting is scheduled for November 2016.