Archive: The Capital City of Berlin - Documentation

A solution was found for delivery traffic to the Parliamentary Quarter at the Spreebogen which took both points of view into account. The German Bundes tag's Building Commission decided on a completely new concept - the Underground Access System (or UES in German).

This is based on the principle of a central entrance and an underground, decentralised form of delivery to integrated delivery zones in the government buildings' basements. The UES enabled an uncoupling of government-related traffic from the city's regular traffic. At the same time it complied with the German Bundestag's strict security regulations. It was therefore possible to avoid building security control points in the public open space around the Reichstag, and there were no parking garage entrances in the surrounding streets. The project was constructed by the German Bundestag itself, but nonetheless conformed with Berlin's development measures in a variety of ways.

The UES is the Parliamentary Quarter's lifeline. It only comes in contact with the city's traffic at one single point, and is far from the highly congested inner-city area: in the Adele-Schreiber-Krieger-Straße. The central control and access point here serves as an entrance and exit for delivery traffic. From this point a tunnel runs under the Spree to underground supply areas in the basements of the Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, the Jakob-Kaiser-Haus, the Paul-Löbe-Haus, and the Reichstag building.

The four-metre-high tunnel has two lanes of traffic, two pedestrian escape tunnels and a utilities shaft, and has a total width of eight metres. The tunnel is also equipped with a modern security system. Tunnel segments were placed in an excavation pit specially constructed as a "dry dock". This was located behind the residential block along the Luisenstraße and was connected to the Spree by way of a slipway. Individual segments were built as floating structures in the so-called caisson construction method and were able to be drawn into the river one after another. In this way there was no serious interruption of shipping on the Spree. Additional tunnel sections leading to the loading bays south of the Spree were then built in an opencoverage technique.

The pedestrian connection between the Reichstag and the Paul-Löbe-Haus is invisible as well. Representatives are able to walk underground from their offices to the plenary hall. The tunnel between the buildings considerably reduces security risks to parliamentarians without limiting their freedom of movement. There is also a second pedestrian tunnel between the Reichstag and the Reichstagspräsidentenpalais (an historic building opposite the Reichstag's east entrance). The "Parliament of short distances" has become a reality due to this special, albeit very costly, type of architecture and for pedestrians and visitors there are no major restrictions overground.