ordered the building of a colossal structure
Construction The construction of the Palace of the Parliament was the most extreme expression of the
systematization program imposed on Romania by
Nicolae Ceaușescu. Systematization was a program of
urban planning carried out by Ceaușescu, who was impressed by the societal organization and mass adulation he saw in
North Korea's
Juche ideology during his
East Asia visit in 1971. Ceaușescu decided to implement similar policies in his country, with the stated goal of turning Romania into a "multilaterally developed
socialist society." A systematization project existed since the 1930s (during the time of King
Carol II) for the Unirii–Dealul Arsenalului area. The
Vrancea earthquake of 4 March 1977 gave
Ceaușescu a pretext to demolish parts of old Bucharest. He wanted a civic center more in line with the country's political stance and started a reconstruction plan of Bucharest based on the socialist realism style. The House of the Republic was the centrepiece of Ceaușescu's project. Named
Project Bucharest, it began in 1978 as an intended replica of the North Korean capital,
Pyongyang. North Korean President
Kim Il Sung had started construction on a similarly monumental residence, the
Kumsusan Palace, two years earlier. A contest was held and won by
Anca Petrescu (1949–2013), who was appointed chief architect of the project at the age of 28. The team that coordinated the work was made up of 10 assisting architects, which supervised a further 700. Construction of the palace began on 25 June 1984, and the inauguration of the work was attended by Ceaușescu, who also frequently inspected the site. Uranus Hill was leveled, and the Uranus-Izvor neighborhood was destroyed so the building could be erected. The area had also been home to the National Archives,
Mihai Vodă Monastery and other monasteries, Brâncovenesc Hospital, as well as about 37 old factories and workshops. Demolition in the Uranus area began in 1982. Approximately of the old city centre were demolished, with 40,000 people being relocated from the area. Between 20,000 and 100,000 people worked on the site and project, operating in three shifts made up of 5,000
Romanian People's Army soldiers and huge numbers of "volunteers". The number of deaths that occurred during construction is a matter of controversy, the official data suggests 27 but workers involved in the construction of the building talk of a much higher number, some say thousands. During the 1980s, the Romanian government implemented
a crippling austerity policy to pay the foreign debt. In 1989, the building costs were estimated at US$1.75 billion, and in 2006 at US$3 billion. In 1990, Australian-born business and media magnate
Rupert Murdoch tried to buy the building for US$1 billion, but his bid was rejected.
After 1989 Since 1994, the palace has housed the lower house of the
Romanian Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, after its former seat, the
Palace of the Chamber of Deputies (now the Palace of the Patriarchate), was donated by the state to the
Romanian Orthodox Church. Since 2004, the upper house, the Senate of Romania, has also been housed in the Palace of the Parliament, after having left the former headquarters of the Central Committee of the
Romanian Communist Party. Six years after the palace's completion, between 2003 and 2004, a glass annex was built alongside the external elevators. This was done to facilitate outside access to the National Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened in 2004 in the west wing of the palace. During the same period, a project aiming to hoist a huge flag was cancelled following public protests. A flag already hoisted outside the building was also removed after the protests. A restaurant inside the palace, accessible only to politicians, was refurbished. Since 1998, the building has also housed an office for the Regional
Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI) Centre for Fighting Transborder Crime. In 2008, the Palace hosted the
20th summit of the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In 2010, politician
Silviu Prigoană proposed re-purposing the building into a
shopping centre and entertainment complex. Citing costs, Prigoană said that the Romanian Parliament should move to a new building, since they occupied only 30% of the massive palace. While the proposal sparked debate in Romania, politician
Miron Mitrea dismissed the idea as a "joke". The palace has also been the background for several
motorsports events, including the 2011 Drift Grand Prix Romania, which brought together professional
drifters from all over Europe.
Copyrights over the building's image Although the Palace of the Parliament was financed from public funds and the architects did
work for hire, after the death of chief architect Anca Petrescu, her
heirs sued the Chamber of Deputies for using images of the iconic building without authorization. The chamber was accused of
copyright infringement for selling photos and
souvenirs depicting the building's image. In other lawsuits, the heirs claimed violation of
trademarks owned by the chief architect through the depiction of the palace from different angles. While legal experts state that no restrictions exist for tourists wishing to photograph the iconic building for
non-commercial purposes, Petrescu's heirs have clearly set out that any commercial use of the building's image is subject to a 2%
royalty fee. It is believed the situation could have been avoided if an agreement between the chief architect and the beneficiary (the Romanian state) had addressed the
intellectual property rights and Romania had implemented
freedom of panorama, restricting the scope of copyright law in such cases. == Technical details ==