THE PALACE OF PARLIAMENT Bucharest
About THE PALACE OF PARLIAMENT Bucharest
The People’s House is located in the historical and geographical centre of Bucharest. It was built on the site of the old “Uranus” neighbourhood which was entirely put to the ground in order to achieve this grand piece of architecture. A lot of important buildings disappeared in this process, among which the “Vacaresti” Monastery, the “Brancovenesc” hospital, the National Archives or the “Republica” Stadium.
Due to its surface of 330.000 m², the building stands in the “Book of Records” as the second biggest administrative building in the world, after the Pentagon building. Moreover, the volume of the building in a total of 2.550.000 m³, assured its place in the top three largest buildings in the world.
The Palace of Parliament is also the most expensive administrative building in the world, being recently estimated (in 2006) at around 4 billion dollars. It was mostly built with Romanian resources, the only exceptions are the doors of ‘Nicolae Balcescu’ hall which are made out of mahogany wood and were a gift from the president of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, for Nicolae Ceausescu.
Anca Petrescu, the architect of the building, led a team of 700 architects and 20.000 construction workers who joined forces in order to build the enormous building. The Palace of Parliament, also known as ‘The People’s House’ before the Revolution (1989, when the Communism was abolished), has impressive dimensions: 270 m over 240 m, 86 meters in hight and 92 meters underground. It also has 12 levels above the ground.
By the time of the Revolution (1989), only a few halls and the exterior of the building were finished. The renovation went on until 1997 when it becomes The Palace of Parliament.
The Palace of Parliament nowadays hosts the Deputy’s Chamber, The Senate of Romania, The Contemporary Art National Museum, the headquarters of South-East European Cooperation Initiative.
The 10 halls and galleries host a number of performances, conferences, concerts, expositions, theatre plays and many more.
The Palace is open for visitations and it makes visitation programs in many international languages available for tourists.