Also known to the Romanians as The People’s House, The Palace of Parliament, completed between 1984 and 1989 due to the maniacal fervency of the communist president Nicolae Ceauşescu, has become the best-known and most-visited tourist site in Bucharest. Situated in the historic and geographic center of the city, on top of a hill, the Parliament Palace, having a 330,000 m² surface and a 2,550,000 m³ volume, represents the second public building in size, after Pentagon.
Its construction required demolishing a quarter of the historic center of the Capital and demanded a huge financial, as well as human, effort. More than 20.000 workers, and hundreds of architects, worked to raise the colossal edifice. At this moment, the Palace of Parliament houses Romania’s Parliament, numerous conference halls and exhibition spaces, and also The National Museum of Contemporary Art. To have an idea of the vastness of the construction, you must know that it has 12 floors and 4 underground levels, 1,100 rooms, an anti-atomic shelter, and each room has between 300 and 500 m².
Monumental sculptures, decorative floors, and laced ceilings all make up rooms, galleries and pompous halls in a mixture of traditional Romanian, Baroque, Gothic and Renaissance elements.
The huge investment in its construction and perpetual upkeep makes the Parliament Palace one of the most controversial buildings in the world.
www.cdep.ro/cic/ See also: Palatul Parlamentului (Foto), Casa Poporului (Foto)