Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu ordered the building of a colossal structure View from the palace. For its construction, the Uranus-Izvor neighborhood was demolished.[1]

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 had 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.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4] 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,[5] as well as about 37 old factories and workshops.[6] Demolition in the Uranus area began in 1982. Approximately 7 km2 (2.7 sq mi) of the old city centre were demolished, with 40,000 people being relocated from the area.[7]

The works were carried out with forced labour in addition to soldiers, minimizing costs.[8]

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".[9] A controversy is how many people died, official data suggest 27 but individuals who worked or were forced to work here talk of a much higher number, some say thousands.[10][11][12]

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.[13]

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.[14] 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.[15]

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".[16]

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.[17]

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.[18] In other lawsuits, the heirs claimed violation of trademarks owned by the chief architect through the depiction of the palace from different angles.[19]

While legal experts state that no restrictions exist for tourists wishing to photograph the iconic building for non-commercial purposes,[19] Petrescu's heirs have clearly set out that any commercial use of the building's image is subject to a 2% royalty fee.[18] 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.[19]