Palace of Parliament, Bucharest

[Sabinae]

Located in the historical and geographical centre of Bucharest and well-known as The People's House, The Romanian Palace of Parliament from Bucharest is, according to Guinness Book of World Records:

- the world's largest civilian administrative building
- the most expensive administrative building
- the heaviest building.

It is the second biggest administrative building in the world, after the Pentagon building, the famous headquarters of the United States Department of Defense.

Planning and Building

Huge project unfolded over two political regims
People's House was built between 1984 and 1989 on Uranus Hill, after the plans of a Romanian group of 200 architects lead by a young architect, Anca Petrescu.

20.000 workers from all over the country joined forces in order to build the enormous building. They worked in three shifts, including weekends.

By the time of the Romanian Revolution (1989), when the communist regime was replaced with a democratic regime, only a few halls and the exterior of the building had been finished. Until 1997, when it became The Palace of Parliament, a big part of the building had been finished.

The building is almost entirely made of materials of Romanian origin: stone, wood and marble.

The interior decorations are also made in Romania, many of them designed specially for this project.

The structure combines elements and motifs from multiple sources, in an eclectic neoclassical architectural style.

Among materials used there are:
- one million cubic meters of marble from Transylvania (Ruschita)
- 3,500 tonnes of crystal - 480 chandeliers
- 1,409 ceiling lights and mirrors
- 700,000 tonnes of steel and bronze used for monumental doors and windows, chandeliers and capitals
- 900,000 m2 (9,700,000 sq ft) of wood, over 95% of which is domestic used for parquet and wainscoting (walnut, oak, sweet cherry, elm, sycamore maple)
- 200,000 m2 (2,200,000 sq ft) of woolen carpets of various sizes, the larger of which were woven on-site by machines installed into the building
- velvet and brocade curtains adorned with embroideries and passementeries in silver and gold.

How Big It Is?

A few figures
- 2.55 million cubic meters volume - the third building in the world after the rocket assembly hangar at Cape Canaveral and Quetzalcoatl pyramid in Mexico; it has a bigger volume than the pyramid of Cheope in Egypt

- area of 330.000 square meters - second in the world after Pentagon building

- has a rectangular shape: 270 m (890 ft) by 240 m (790 ft) and 86 m high (282 ft)

- 12 levels above the ground

- 8 underground levels measuring 92 m (302 ft): 4 levels currently available for the general public and another 4 levels in different stages of completion

- 1,100 rooms, 2 underground parking garages comprising 440 offices and 10 conference and meeting halls (three halls between 1,000 and 1,500 square meters each, two halls of over 2,000 square meters each, two meeting halls with a capacity of 1,200 seats and respectively 850 seats)

- the biggest conference hall, Union Hall (Sala Unirii) is 16 m height and has an area of 2200 square meters

- in Union Hall there is the biggest chandelier in the Palace which weights 3 tonnes and has 7000 lighting bulbs.

source

[Heart of Oak]

glad i don't have to change the light bulbs 7000 in one chandelier....