The Parliament's Palace and the Athenaeum
The Palace of the Parliament
The Palace of the Parliament (also known as The Peoples House before the revolution), is situated in the centre of the Bucharest and has a length of 270 meters, a breadth of 240 meters.Also,the building has a height about 86 meters and 92 meters underground, with 12 floors at the surface and 8 underground floors.The Palace of the Parliament approximates 1000 rooms, of which 440 offices, over 30 drawing-rooms, 4 restaurants, 3 libraries, two underground parking, a concert hall, and other rooms.
The construction of the building begun in 1983 and finished in 1989.The drawing-rooms names were chosen after 1989,representing well known Romanian personalities
like Nicolae Iorga, Nicolae Balcescu,Ion I.C. Bratianu and others.
The Palace of the Parliament has represented since 1989 the headquarters of the Deputies Chamber, and since 2004, it has been the headquarters of Senate Chamber.With its surface about 330.000 m²,the building is mentioned in the Guinness Book, at "Administrative Buildings" chapter, on the second place, after the Pentagon.On the other hand,it occupies the third place in the Guinness Book with its volume about 2.550.000 m³, after the Cape Canaveral headquarters and Quetzalcoatl's pyramid.
The Romanian Athenaeum
The Athenaeum construction begun in 1886, a part of founds were gathered from the people, at the stimulus Dati un leu pentru Ateneu!("Give a lion for the Athenaeum!"). The archtectural plans of the building were made by the French architect Albert Galleron. He had to use the existing foundation of the manege built by the society named Romanian Equestra.The concert hall has 600 seats at the floor and 52 at the boxes.Over the boxes around the cupola is a fresco painted by the Romanian artist Costin Petrescu.The fresco contains about 25 scenes representing important parts of Romanian history.
