| |
|
 |
|
|
Panoramic view |
The Parlament Palace - interior |
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 m2 each. It has two halls of over 2.000 m2, two
conference rooms with a capacity of 1.200 seats and 850 seats. All these have a
surface of 265.000 m2 .
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.
|
