Hungarian Parliament: Steindl's Gothic Palace on the Danube

Why is it significant?

Stand at the edge of Kossuth Lajos tér and let your eyes run along the building in front of you... and keep running. Two hundred and sixty-eight metres of pale stone, pinnacles, pointed arches and a ribbed dome.

Key Facts

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Stand at the edge of Kossuth Lajos tér and let your eyes run along the building in front of you... and keep running. Two hundred and sixty-eight metres of pale stone, pinnacles, pointed arches and a ribbed dome. It is the largest building in Hungary, and it was built for a country that, at the time, did not fully run its own affairs. After the Compromise of 1867, the Kingdom of Hungary shared a monarch and an army with Austria but governed itself, and it wanted a house to prove it. In the 1880s a competition was won by Imre Steindl, with a neo-Gothic design that openly nods to the Houses of Parliament in London. Building began in 1885 and lasted until 1904. The dome rises exactly ninety-six metres, an echo of 896, the traditional year the Magyar tribes arrived, and of the millennium celebrated in 1896. Steindl lost his sight in the final years and died in 1902, before his palace was finished. Inside there are around seven hundred rooms and roughly forty kilograms of gold leaf. The plan is perfectly symmetrical, because it was built for two chambers, an elected lower house and an upper house of magnates. Hungary now has a single chamber, so one of the twin halls is used for conferences. Outside the old upper house, brass holders are numbered along the window sills. The story goes that members parked their cigars there before going in... and that a truly great speech was one that let a good Havana go out. Under the dome lies the Holy Crown of Hungary, moved here on the first day of the year 2000, with the sceptre, the orb and the sword. At the end of the Second World War it left the country, ended up in American hands and was kept at Fort Knox, until it came home in January 1978. Its little cross on top leans to one side. Nobody knows for certain why... the favourite legend blames a chest lid closed in a hurry. Now turn your back to the river and cross the square towards the long ministry building on its eastern side. Walk right up to its walls, because the stone there remembers one particular morning.