“People’s House”, the second largest building in the world after the Pentagon, the house with 3000 rooms and 200 bathrooms, the jewelry of Nicolae Ceausescu and of the communism, all stand as the Parliament Palace in Romania.
This building has an area of 315,000 m2, of which more than 250,000 m2 exceeding 84 m in height and 25 m deep. Its construction began in 1984 and should have been completed in 1986 but the deadline was postponed until 1990. Even today, we can notice the lack of finishes of the building. The materials used were: walnut, cherry and oak wood, Transilvania marble, curtains embroidered with gold and silver, carpets with a 5 cm thickness, bronze, aluminum and glass chandeliers (over 2800) and all produced in Romania, because Ceasusescu wished that all would be intern products. Ceausescu feared nuclear wars, so that the Parliament Palace has 4 subway floors and 2 underground fallout shelters. Given that this project was born during the Cold War, this was understandable.
For the Romanian people, this project was like a drought. Beside his war fear, the Dictator feared the people, so that the engineer Traian Popp reveals that there is a secret tunnel which connects the basement with the subway trains, for something such as an unexpected run of Ceausescu’s.
Like Hitler, Ceausescu believed that what is big is also strong, and after visiting China, Vietnam and North Chorea in 1971, came back with new urban plans and very determined. A further reason was he earthquake in 1977, which beside its 1400 deaths, left huge damages behind and many building were completely destroyed.
Nowadays, the Parliament Palace is considered Romania’s people pride, which initially hated on those times, but which now is shown to the world as the most valuable jewelry that no tourist must miss while visiting Bucharest and Romania.
Catherine Lalumiere – General Secretary of European Council, said after her visit: “How long is the road map of Romania those four years since I’ve been here in February 1990! You even managed to tame this enormous palace, the megalomaniac, but also a masterpiece of Romanians”.
