Parliament House or People’s House from Romania
People’s House is one of the most controversial building in Romania, both in terms of its role and usefulness, but also aesthetics.
In December 1989, when the communist regime was ousted following the Revolution, the huge structure was unfinished, Ceausescu managed to finish the facade and fit several rooms.
House of the People is the second administrative building in the world in area after the Pentagon, the 64 800 square kilometers. It was built between 1984 and 1989 on the site of monasteries were demolished and Uranus Hill that was leveled. Design works were made by a team of architects led by Anca Petrescu. Ceausescu planned to do besides huge office spaces and living spaces.
Now here is the Romanian Parliament.
House of People has a rectangular shape, with impressive dimensions: 270 m to the front, 240 m on the side, a height of 84 m and a depth (0m) 92 m.
The building has 12 floors, four underground levels and a nuclear bunker (Ceausescu wanted to make a secret subway line to be linked to the Bucharest subway), 1,100 rooms: offices, reception halls, rooms for scientific, cultural and social political.
It has two monumental galleries 180 m long and 18 m high. The biggest room is the Union Hall, which has a huge sliding roof that can enter and a helicopter. The carpet in the hall weighs 14 tons and was right there with weaving machines made especially for this purpose.
About 3,500 tonnes of crystal were used for chandeliers. The chandelier is the highest in the small hall of Parliament, weighs 3 tons and uses 7,000 light bulbs.
Most of the building is unused.
It houses 440 offices, dozens of conference rooms, the largest being those between 1,000 sqm and 1,500 sqm each. It has two rooms with over 2,000 square meters, two meeting rooms with a capacity of 1,200 seats and respectively 850 seats. All of them have an area of 265,000 square meters.
In terms of volume built, the People’s House is ranked third in the world (2.55 million cubic meters) by building from Cape Canaveral (in the US, where cosmic rockets are assembled) and after the Quetzalcoatl pyramid in Mexico.
In an attempt to complete the construction works Pharaonic People’s House, after Ceausescu’s death, have spent huge sums, but no date building is not fully functional.
