The new German Foreign Office, located in the centre of Berlin, consists of an old building and a new extension, which is adapted to the proportions of the historical structure. This ensemble fuses the past and the future to create a grand visual impact and is deemed to be one of the most interesting office buildings in town.

The office complex surrounds a rectangular atrium on three sides, while the fourth side is closed off with a glazed facade rising to the full height of the building.
The glazed roof rests on a grid of six main girders running parallel to the facade. This grid supports a secondary structure, a grid of rectangles forming individual cable braced barrel vaults, on which the panels of laminated safety glass are installed.

The glazed facade has an almost invisible supporting framework of pre-stressed steel cables, some of them additionally braced by steel rods.

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Location: Berlin, Germany
Architect: Müller-Reimann
Completion: 1999
Client: Bundesamt für Raumwesen und Raumordnung
Scope of work: Steel structure of the roof, cable net facade and glazing
Cladding: Laminated safety glass; 1.300 sqm roof, 220 sqm gable and 730 sqm facades
Type of structure: 170 t steel; roof structure is a grid of main girders with cable bracings, single layer cable net for the point supported facade glazing