The Parliament Palace

The Parliament Palace is the second largest administrative building in the world after the Pentagon regarding its surface, of 64.800 km². It was built between 1984 and 1989 on the place of some monasteries, that were demolished, and of the Uranus Hill, that was leveled to the ground, in the center of Bucharest, by a team of architects led by Anca Petrescu. It was destined for the members of the Communist Party; Ceausescu planned to make beside the offices, personal living places; so that its surface would have been bigger. Presently it houses Romania`s Parliament. The People`s House has a rectangle shape, with impressive dimensions: 270 m at the façade, 240 m on the side, a height of 84 m and a depth (under 0 m) of 92 m. It has 12 stories, four underground levels and a nuclear bunker (a secret subway line connected to the Bucharest subway was meant to be constructed), 1.100 rooms: offices, reception halls, scientific, cultural and socio-politics manifestation rooms. It has two monumental galleries of 180 m length and 18 m height. The largest hall is the Unification Hall that has a sliding ceiling through which can enter a helicopter. The hall`s carpet weighs 14 tons and was woven on the premises with special build machines created for the purpose. Around 3.500 tons of crystal were used for the chandeliers. The biggest chandelier is the one in the small Parliament hall, it weighs three tons and 7.000 light bulbs are used for it. After the Revolution the building was meant to be blown up, but the costs would have been huge. Most part of the building is not used. It houses 440 offices, dozens of conference rooms, the largest are between 1.000 and 1.500 m<sup>2</sup> each. It has two halls of over 2.000 m<sup>2</sup>, two conference rooms with a capacity of 1.200 seats and 850 seats. All these have a surface of 265.000 m<sup>2</sup> . Regarding the built volume: the People`s House is on the third place in the world (2,55 million m³) after the building of Cape Canaveral (in the U.S.A., where cosmic rockets are assembled) and after Quetzalcoatl`s Pyramid from Mexico.