Bucharest, Part 3: Parliment Palace, Romanian Athenaeum, More Fabulous Architecture

 The morning (Saturday, July 29th) started out with a mind-boggling tour of the famed Parliment Palace, touted to be the second largest building in the entire world! QUITE incredible. (Presumably, only the Pentagon in the U.S. is larger!) 

The tour was only an hour long, and only covered a small fraction of the building. Our fabulous tour guide, Francis, told us that it would take about 18 hours to actually walk the 30 kilometers required to visit all 1,500 rooms of this monstrosity!!  

The construction of the famous (or infamous, depending upon your perspective!) building began in 1984-- ironically, the same year George Orwell wrote the novel "1984". (I suspect that this book--a warning against totalitarianism rule--might have even been inspired by the Romanian communist regime at that time.) 

According to our tour guide, the vast majority of the old city of Bucharest was decimated (more precisely, a full fifth of the entire city), including 19 Orthodox churches, 6 synagogues and 30,000 homes, displacing some 40,000 residents. Is it any wonder that Bucharestians (and Romanians in general) hated--and still hate-- Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife passionately, and this monument to their megalomaniacal rule?!? Wholly justified, it seems to me.

Nonetheless, the present Romanian government has done its best to justify the existence of the monstrous palace. It presently contains many government offices; hosts multiple, official gatherings frequently; boasts of myriad other significant events, including private weddings and so forth. 

It was a truly fascinating visit!  Besides the wikipedia version of the data collected about the palace, I have also added what I recall of the dizzying statistics that Francis provided us with. 

So...here is the result: 

  • The Palace of the Parliament (Palatul Parlamentului in Romanian) is also known as the Republic's House (Casa Republicii) or People's House/People's Palace (Casa Poporului)
  • It is the seat of the Romanian Parliment (as one might suppose, of course!)  located atop the national capital. 
  • The Palace reaches a height of 84 meters (276 ft)
  • It has a floor area of 365,000 m2 (3,930,000 sq ft)
  •  Its volume is 2,550,000 m3 (90,000,000 cu ft). 
  • It is the heaviest building in the world, weighing about 4,098,500,000 kilograms (or, 9.04 billion pounds; or... 4.10 million tons), but is the second heaviest STRUCTURE. (The Great Pyramid of Giza, at 5.75 million tons, is about 40% heavier.) {My note: since they cannot pick up these structures, how on EARTH do they ever make these sort of calculations!??!) 
  • The building was designed and supervised by chief architect Anca Petrescu {Yes, a woman!!),  with a team consisting of approximately 700 architects.
  • It was constructed over a period of 13 years (1984–97). 
  • The styles included Socialist Realism and modernist Neoclassical architectural forms.
  • The Palace was ordered by Nicolae Ceausescu, the communist ruler in the 60's-80's. (Born: 1918: executed in the Romanian revolution of 1989.) 
  • As of 2020, the Palace of the Parliament is valued at €4 billion, making it the most expensive administrative building in the world. The cost of heating, electricity, and lighting alone exceeds $6 million per year (though our guide believed the ACTUAL building costs were much more-- closer to 10 million, based on current costs).
Some additional "fun facts" Francis told us:
  • There are 700,000 metric tons of steel and bronze. 
  • 1,000,000 cubic metres of Transylvanian marble cover the surfaces; the construction used up ALL of the rare marble mined in Romania! 
  • 3,500 metric tons of crystal glass make up 480 chandeliers (The largest being 5 tons alone; the second largest, a mere 2 tons!) 
  • There are 200,000 square metres of wool carpet, with varying dimensions. (Some of them are so large that machines were brought into the building to weave them "on location"!)
  • The largest carpet weighs 3 tons and requires 30 people to roll/unroll it in order to clean the floors underneath. 
  • There are 900,000 cubic metres of wood (walnut, oak, cherry, elm and sycamore maple), woven into the various ornate designs, seen on the floors, walls, ceilings and moldings.
  • In 2004, the Palace housed a NATO summit in the Union Hall, which is the largest room in the building. This room is notable for a sliding glass ceiling that can support the weight of a helicopter!
  • Some 3,000 full time staff members are required to clean--and otherwise maintain--all of the rooms... and some manner of restoration is ALWAYS occuring somewhere in the Palace. 
  • One of the rooms--also used for the reception of Nicolae's special guests--was known as the "clapping room". Since he was obsessed with his presumed popularity and adoration of the masses, he used every opportunity to satisfy his egotism. In this room, even if only welcomed by a handful of guests, their "applause" was amplified about 10 fold! My tour group visited this room, and it was TRUE! Though we only numbered about thirty, when we clapped, it could have easily been 300! Such were the amazing acoustics in the narcisist's special reception room!

And now, for the photos...which, sadly, don't begin to do it justice:


Note: this is the "side" entrance of the building!! The main/front entrance of the Palace is another side... I could not get a photo of it, though, because of position of the sun, AND because I couldn't stand back far enough to take it all in!!! Yes, hard to conceptualize, to be sure!! 


Considering the massive columns in numerous locations, is it any wonder that, after the construction of the Palace, Romania had no marble left to mine?!


This wooden door--so lovely and ornate--is probably about30 feet high!


This is the carpet that weighs 3 tons and takes 30 people to roll/unroll it! Sounds like FUN, no?!?


The ballroom: rentable for wedding receptions and the like. I believe Francis told us it could easily hold 1,000 people! Hard to get the perspective, though, from my photos...it really was QUITE massive!!






Francis stated that this room was at the very center of the Palace; hence, the ornate circle in the middle of the floor. Many important official gatherings happen in this room. 





The "small" chandelier, weighing in at a modest 2 tons! I forget how many pieces of crystal went into its construction, but number in the thousands...


I wonder how may trees gave up their lives for the wood paneling in so many of the rooms?!? Gorgeous, true...but tragic for the trees!!!


A lot of rare wood went into the floor patterns, also quite gorgeous.. and the carpet in this room was one of the largest... sadly, forgot the square footage he told us. Suffice it to say, it was understandably vast! 


An important meeting room for dignitaries... 


Each room we saw had completely different styles and colors.  I imagine that, in addition to the huge team of archtects, there had to be an equally huge team of interior decorators and other, similar, artists involved. 


Funny story here: These large marble "frames" of a sort were intended for portraits of famous communist world leaders, but since the communist party was obliterated before the completion of the palace, the frames were never filled. Except! This one, and a couple others...with "fake" famous paintings made to look like walls of the Vatican! Yes, some sort of feature film was made here that simulated the Vatican, Other movies have also been filmed in the palace over the years. 


Here, you see the "empty" marble frame...what most of the walls in this particular hall look like. 


Interesting story about this room, the "reception" room as guests arrived through the main palace entrance. There are 2 staircases--you can only see one side in this photo--that mirror each other. Apparently, the plan was for Nicolae and his wife to each descend the opposite staircases in the most dramatic fashion, as they arrived to greet their guests. Sadly for them, they were executed before they ever got to fulfill this vision. 


The fascination of these beautifully ornate doors is that they actually slide back into the walls! 


Another monstrous, beautifully patterned wool carpet. 




I was truly in awe of the beautiful floors...woodwork and carpets alike! 




The main assembly room for the current Romanian parliment. 






Never seens any staircase banisters quite like these! 


After I left the Parliment Palace, I continued my stroll through central Bucharest, on over to more famous, historic buildings. The most outstanding one was this: The Romanian Athenaeum. It is a concert hall which was opened in 1888, and is a significant landmark here. It is, in fact, the most prestigious concert hall in Bucharest (and HAS to be the most beautiful!) It is the home to the reknowned "George Enescu" Philharmonic orchestra. 

It was, of course, magnificent, inside and out: 





You cannot quite see it in the photo, but at the center is a sculpture of the famous Romanian composer, George Enescu (1881 - 1955) One of his most well known compositions, Romanian Rapsody, is one of MY particular favorites, and sends me into raptures of ecstasy when I hear it! It is truly inspired and inspiring!


















I was hoping to be able to attend a symphony in this hall while in Bucharest, but sadly, the whole symphony is on vacation until August! And, wouldn't you know it, I depart from Bucharest on July 31st! 




And finally, completing the day's tour of the city, I wandered various streets, passing by more lovely old buildings. (Sorry--no captions-- didn't know what any of them were, besides the one obvious church!) It was truly a satisfying day this particular Saturday... and Bucharest is growing on me daily! 






























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