Palace of the Parliament (People's Palace)

World’s second-largest administrative building (after the Pentagon) and former dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu’s most infamous creation. Started in 1984,  the building has more than 3000 rooms. 

World’s second-largest administrative building (after the Pentagon) and former dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu’s most infamous creation. Started in 1984,  the building has more than 3000 rooms.

 The Palace has 12 stories and eight underground levels, the last one being an atomic bunker. One of Nicolae Ceaușescu's fears was a nuclear war, so he had the bunker linked to the main state institutions through 20 km of tunnels, as well as to several residential apartments.

 Building the Palace of the Parliament (People's Palace) was part of Nicolae Ceaușescu's plan to reconstruct Bucharest, named Project Bucharest. He developed it after the terrible earthquake in 1977, and it was intended to be a replica of Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea as Ceaușescu visited China and North Korea in 1971, and he was very impressed by the cult of personality surrounding Mao Zedong and Kim Il-Sung.

 As a socialist country in Eastern Europe, at the time the Palace was built, it was meant to symbolize the triumph of communism in Romania while being an emblematic home of the Ceausescu family – this is why all the rooms are oversized and hyper-ornate. In fact, its opulence and ostentatious décor make it the most expensive administrative building in the world, with an estimated value of over three billion euro.

 Today, the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest is an administrative building that hosts the Parliament of Romania, with its Chamber of Deputies, the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies, and the Romanian Senate.

 Interesting facts

240 meters in length, 270 meters in width, and 84 meters tall.

Due to its enormous dimensions, the building sinks by 6mm each year.

Between 20,000 and 100,000 people were appointed to the project of building the Palace.

Designed by a team of 700 architects.

All the materials, as well as the workforce, were brought only from Romania.

Tens of thousands of people were relocated and entire neighborhoods from Bucharest, including the stylish Uranus, were destroyed as well as hundreds of years old monuments to make room for the Parliament Palace and the new Civic Center.

 Several types of tours are available, including a 'standard' tour of the main rooms and hallways, and 'complete' tours that combine the standard tour with views of the basement.

Entry is by guided tour only (book ahead), be sure to bring your passport or national ID with you for the security check.