People’s House, an Unmapped Territory
The Parliament Palace has always been the most controversial building in Bucharest.
Steliu Lambru, 17.02.2014, 13:26
The Parliament Palace has always been the most controversial building in Bucharest. It is, above anything else, a symbol of the communist totalitarianism, the very epitome of architectural kitsch. It is also a space of the unknown and a sort of unmapped territory, although it is the work of a system that used to know and control everything. Initially named The House of the Socialist Republic of Romania, the building was designed by a team of architects headed by Anca Petrescu and was aimed at marking a new era of maximum development in Romania’s history. Many things were said about Anca Petrescu after 1989, and some people even pretend to know everything about her. But that is far from the truth. There are plenty of myths and urban legends about this building and about Nicolae Ceausescu, the man who ordered its construction. Augustin Ioan is a professor with the “Ion Mincu” University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest. He told us more about the stories that used to circulate during his student years, in the 1980s. :
“A source of these stories used to be the former rector of the University of Architecture, Cornel Dumitrescu, who, after the death of Ceausescu’s personal architect, Cezar Lazarescu, took over this post exactly at the time when the building was being erected. Dumitrescu often spent time in Club A, a place where people used to talk about things they would never mention in public. In Club A, after drinking a bottle of whiskey that would give him the excuse of talking nonsense, just like a drunk man would, he used to recount his meetings with Ceausescu. Some of them were quite extraordinary, and as accurate as they could be after a bottle of whiskey. I heard things about blueprints made by Ceausescu himself, but no one ever saw them. One of the architects of the Palace Hall though, said he personally witnessed one of Ceausescu’s drawing sessions. There were lots of similar stories. Ceausescu was said to have asked, for instance, not to have round windows at the upper floors, for fear that birds might get inside the building. Also, he supposedly ordered architects to make all boulevards perfectly straight. What’s certain is that he understood nothing about the technique of building such a palace. Everything that had to be rebuilt at his request, after visits he had paid to the construction site — and we’re talking here about entire parts of the building – was made without having a scale model. Whole parts of the building were just being added or demolished whenever Ceausescu ordered it.”
Beyond any urban legends, there are questions about the Parliament Palace that nobody can answer. One of these questions is related to the very name of the building. It’s still uncertain whether the name of People’s House, that replaced the building’s old name, was given after 1989 or it had circulated before as part of the urban folklore. Augustin Ioan:
”There are a few things that nobody knows. No one knows, for instance, exactly how much the construction cost. What we can tell is that in 1991 Rupert Murdoch offered 2 billion US dollars for it. I don’t know if it was a fair price, we were at a stage then when we would say out loud ‘our country is not for sale’. He planned to turn it into an infotainment centre, an information centre for the entire South-East Europe. Equally interesting are the stories after 1989, and I’ve witnessed a really funny one. In 1999, a strange gentleman came from the US to the Bucharest City Hall. He represented a huge investment fund that administered the wealth of Michael Jackson and of some Native American tribes. And he asked for permission to build a Dracula theme park on the plot behind the building, as a starting point for trips to Bran Castle and other places related to the myth of Dracula. The connection between a Dracula Theme Park and the Parliament Palace is food for thought even today.”
The unknown elements of the Parliament Palace give the place an aura of mystery and an almost Gothic quality. It is a unique entity, which almost devours those who enter it. Augustin Ioan:
”This building remains largely uncharted territory. There’s a lot more to it than we know. There is no overall blueprint for it, because from the very beginning it was a state secret, and construction works were conducted on limited sectors. Whoever was in charge of a hall would only receive the interior outline of the hall, they had no idea of the overall structure of the building. We can’t even call it an architectural item, because it is actually a set of items. It is comparable to a settlement, both in terms of its size, and in terms of its relations with the city it destroyed in ordered to replace. It virtually pushes the city away, it is a building guarded by armed sentinels, and, quite ironically, it is still protected by a stone fence, although it is the most public building in Romania. It’s simply a rural item amplified tens of thousands of times. And another interesting thing: the competition held several years ago for its restoration only concerned the front of the building. What’s behind? The Uranus boulevard and the Salvation Cathedral will be built behind the building.”
The People’s House also fuelled the imagination of those who believe in the catacombs of Bucharest. People interested in paranormal experiences believe there is another Bucharest underneath what we can see, and the Parliament Palace is connected to it by means of countless tunnels. What we know is that there is at least one tunnel, as Augustin Ioan confirmed. But some people believe the huge building is connected to the ones around it, such as the Defence Ministry building, or even to more remote ones, such as the Cotroceni Palace. One thing that encourages such suspicions is that the building has 7 underground levels, including an anti-atomic bunker for 3000 people.
The Parliament Palace together with its surroundings make up a special universe, separated from the city that has failed to integrate it. And an expensive universe, too, given that the budget for its maintenance is equal to the budget of Ploiesti, a city with over 200 thousand inhabitants.
