A building of absurd magnitude, the Parliamentary Palace hosts Romania’s Parliament, but also perfectly encapsulates Nicolae Ceaușescu’s megalomania.
At 365,000 square metres, it’s the largest administrative building in the world, intended as a residence, and despite containing reception halls, museums and government offices and the parliament hall, is still almost three quarters empty.
The palace was raised at an enormous cost, in terms of money but also lives, as thousands of people are claimed to have died during its construction in the second half of the 1980s.
