The 4-star Hotel Steigenberger am Kanzleramt is part of the Lehrter urban district between Berlin Central Train Station and the arc described by the River Spree on the western edge of Washingtonplatz. The four individually designed blocks of the district are conceived as an urban entity, which, in terms of the buildings’ form and materiality presents itself as a whole. Following the urban planning leitmotif of a slab broken into four parts with clear outlines and broken inner edges, the 30-metre-high building addresses the outside edges of the district in a simple, cubic way. The main entrance to the hotel on Washingtonplatz is marked only by a two storey-incision in the base, which also refers to the expressive character of the building volumes on the inner sides of the district.

Here, at several places, the eight building levels step in front of or back from the building line by up to 2 metres, which expands and condenses the urban space, leads to the spatialisation of the short streets that run through the district.

The conglomerate structure of the facade as a whole develops out the interplay between large areas of fixed glazing mounted flush with the outer face of the wall and two-storey window openings set in deep reveals within a stony framework of sanded Sellenberg shell limestone.