THE PARLIAMENT
O
ver centuries, the descendants of the conquering leader, Árpád, enacted laws without use of a permanent house for the Hungarian parliament. After the 1848 revolution, the dynamically altered nation began to feel the need to change this situation. Thus, in 1882 a competition was announced to design a building that would house the parliament, which was won by Imre Steindl. Three years later on the 12th of October, the works began on Lipótváros’ Tömlő square. This was the biggest investment of the time, and for seventeen years nearly a thousand people worked on it. As there was a wish to undertake the project with Hungarian materials and a Hungarian workforce if possible, entire branches of industry were revived by this initiative. In this building with an internal volume of 473 000 cubic metres, 90 exterior and 152 interior statues stand tall on the walls. The building has 27 doors, and inside 29 staircases enable movement between the levels. The building is 268 m long, 123 m wide and 96 m high, and there are more than 200 offices accommodated. It has become a structural representative of the capital of our homeland.