The Palace of Parliament in Bucharest - Built with great sacrifices!

Photo. This building was built with blood, sweet and tears. © Travel Explorations.

The building is still unfinished. It was not according the any labour low. No law that requires employers to provide safe working conditions.The working conditions was pretty poor, and many workers lost their life. Entry is by guided tour only (book in advance). Bring your passport since they check IDs. Today it houses the parliament. The Palace of Parliament in Bucharest: a huge construction built with great sacrifices. The hauntings in the most impressive building of Romania by arina January 19, 2014. Also known as the “People’s House”, it was Nicolae Ceausescu’s attempt to redesign Bucharest by constructing a series of impressive buildings meant to prove to the world how wealthy and powerful was the Socialist Republic of Romania. Mostly the huge building is a symbol of a maniac.

The Palace of Parliament, also known as the House of the People, is the world’s largest and heaviest civilian building with an administrative function and it can be seen in Bucharest, the Capital of Romania. Being so large, it is not hard to spot from the center of Bucharest (The Union Square). Construction began in 1983 and the cornerstone was laid on 25 June 1984. Great sacrifices were done to build this giant construction. To get a real impression of the omfang of the building it must be viewed from air and explored underground.

Building this Palace required demolishing much of Bucharest’s historic district, including 19 Orthodox Christian churches, six Jewish synagogues, three Protestant churches (plus eight relocated churches), and 30,000 residences. Read more about the story behind this amazing building: http://touristinromania.net/2014/01/19/palace-of-parliament-bucharest-huge-construction-built-great-sacrifices-hauntings-impressive-building-romania-secret-passages/

It measures 270 m by 240 m, 86 m high, and 92 m under ground. It has 1,100 rooms and is 12 stories tall, with additional 8 underground levels.A colossal parliament building known for its ornate interior, it houses the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, three museums and an international conference center. The National Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Totalitarianism and Socialist Realism, and the Museum of the Palace are hosted inside the palace. Though named the House of the Republic (Casa Republicii) after the Romanian Revolution of 1989 it became widely known as the People's House (Casa Poporului), also known in English as the People's Palace. There are public tours organized in a number of languages.

The Palace was designed by a team of 700 architects led by architect Anca Petrescu. Construction began during Communism, in 1980, with the demolition of Republica Stadium and part of the old city. Among the important historic buildings lost then, some of them were National Monuments, were the Văcăreşti Monastery, the Brâncovenesc Hospital and the National Archives. In 1989, it was nearly completed by the Ceaușescu regime as the seat of political and administrative power.

The Palace of Parliament measures 270 m (890 ft) by 240 m (790 ft), 86 m (282 ft) high, and 92 m (302 ft) underground. It has 1,100 rooms, 2 underground parking garages and is 12 stories tall, with four underground levels currently available for the general public and in use, and another four in different stages of completion. The floorspace is 340,000 m2 (3,700,000 sq ft). The construction’s volume overtakes Keops Pyramid by 2%.

The Pentagon site covers a total of 583 acres, while the building itself sits on 29 acres.

According to the website Tourist in Romania: For its construction 200 architects and 20.000 workers worked 24 hours per day to complete the project. Many Romanian people don’t see this building as a symbol of greatness but rather as a reminder of communism, of an era when people were starving but billions of dollars were used to rise this Palace. Many also argue that this building, because of its impressive size, has a huge maintenance cost paid from the state’s budget. The Palace of Parliament is a very crowded building by day, when the Romanian politicians are coming to work, but really creepy at night. Many guardians tell stories of haunting; objects moving around, weird noises, doors opening on their own.

At the time of Romanian Revolution which overthrew communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, in December 1989, the Palace of the Parliament was completely finished on the outside and inside had most of its rooms finished.

The Palace of the Parliament (Romanian: Palatul Parlamentului) is the seat of the Parliament of Romania. Located on Spirii Hill in central Bucharest, the Palace is the world's largest civilian building with an administrative function. It is also the most expensive administrative building and heaviest building.

Mysterious Tunnels. In the famous TV show “Top Gear” we see the three presenters driving their cars through the tunnels that are hidden beneath the Palace of the Parliament. These were designed by Nicolae Ceausescu so he can get from the building to the airport below ground in case of a Revolution. He was very cautious, but unfortunately this did not help him much when the actual Romanian Revolution started.

Stein Morten Lund, april 2015

Additional information

Read the article: 7 Amazing Facts about The Palace of The Parliament in Bucharest

Amazing facts about the Palace of the Parliament, Palatul Parlamentului (source: Wikipedia):
General information
Architectural style: late interpretation of neoclassical architecture
Construction started 25 June 1984
Completed 1997[1]
Cost €3-billion
Technical details: Size 270 m by 240 m, 86 m high,
92 m underground
1,100 rooms
12 stories tall
with four additional underground levels currently available and in use (another four in different stages of completion)
Floor count 12
Floor area 340,000 m2 (3,700,000 sq ft)
Design and construction
Architect Anca Petrescu (chief architect) led a group of 700 architects[2]

The Pentagon site covers a total of 583 acres, while the building itself sits on 29 acres. The structure is supported by 41,492 concrete piles. There are five floors, plus mezzanines and basements. The building itself is 77 feet, 3.5 inches high. Each outside wall is 921 feet long. The world's largest office building, the Pentagon is synonymous with the Department of Defense and a symbol of American military might. Exactly 60 years before the September 2001 attacks, on September 11, 1941, ground was broken in Arlington Country, Virginia, for a huge new building to house the War Department, forerunner of today's Department of Defense. The department was then operating from 17 separate buildings in Washington (Source: Fact Monster).

With 17.5 miles of corridors and a total floor area of 6.6 million square feet, the Pentagon is a military complex like no other.Across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., stands the Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense and a five-sided concrete and steel symbol of America’s military strength. Encompassing more than 6 million square feet of floor space, the Pentagon ranks among the largest office buildings in the world. On September 11, 2001, shortly after terrorists flew hijacked commercial airliners into New York City’s World Trade Center, another hijacked plane struck the Pentagon, killing 189 people and damaging roughly one-third of the building. The extensive post-9/11 repairs and renovations of the Pentagon were completed in exactly one year, a hectic pace matched only by that of the building’s original design and construction 60 years earlier (source: HISTORY.com).