Palace of the Parliament (Palatul Parlamentului) in Bucharest, Romania by gigapanbot

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Right in the historical and geographical centre of Bucharest stands an impressive building that strikes the eye by its particular style. It is the Palace of the Romanian Parliament, a "giant" built during the "golden age" of the dictatorial regime and born in the mind of a man for whom the notion of "reasonable size" did not exist.
The Guiness Book of World Records lists the building in second place according to its 330,000 sq.m. surface, that is after the Pentagon building, and in third place according to its 2,550,000 c.m. volume.
Still, there is a "first place " no other building in the whole world could compete for, namely that of the most disputed one, as no other construction has, until nowadays, been the target of such a great number of epithets, varying from "genius" to "monstruos".
Built and rebuilt overnight, the haughty "Republic House" had swallowed tens of billions of lei and a huge volume of work before the Revolution.
The construction was started and raised while many Romanians experienced a period of privations. Probably that is the reason why, at the very beginning the building was the object of their hate.
After December 1989, the building which may easily be spotted wherever you are in Bucharest, was considered to be hideous and become subject to the most original ideas.
Some, out of the revolutionary excitement, agreed that it should be dynamited, as it stood for the symbol of communism. Others agreed that it could accomodate a museum of communism. There were also others, more extravagant, who talked about palms rustle, rolling dice on green tables, roulette... But the Palace was not to be a casino!
Realizing its enormous value, in fact a Romanian inheritance in danger of being destroyed and robbed, people began to view the building with less hostility and named it the "People's House".
Look at the palace at higher resolution on this image: www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=11844