Hungarian Parliament Building — monument
Image by Hermann from Pixabay

Hungarian Parliament Building

Országház

  • 2 min read
  • 47.507° N 19.046° E

Interesting facts

  • The building was to use only Hungarian materials; the exception is eight six-metre marble monoliths by the main staircase, brought from Sweden.
  • The two debating chambers are mirror images of each other, built for a two-house legislature; today only one hosts sessions and the other is used for conferences and tours.
  • In the lounge of the former upper house the carpet is blue rather than red, a nod to the "blue-blooded" aristocrats who once sat there.
  • On average about a thousand people worked on the site for seventeen years, moving some 176,000 cubic metres of earth.
  • The gold used in the decoration is 22 to 23 carat, and there are 90 statues on the outside walls and 152 inside.
  • It was one of Europe's first district-heated buildings, warmed from a boiler house opened in 1899 in the courtyard of a nearby office block also designed by Steindl.
  • Two losing entries in the design competition were built after all, as the Ethnographic Museum and the Ministry of Agriculture, both facing the Parliament across Kossuth Square.
  • Steindl's dome was inspired by a centrally planned church in Vienna's Fünfhaus district designed by his teacher, Friedrich von Schmidt.
  • A red star topped the dome during the communist era and was taken down in 1990.
  • On 23 October 1989 Mátyás Szűrös proclaimed the Republic of Hungary from the building's balcony facing Kossuth Square.

Why it is worth it

Stretched for 268 metres along the Pest bank of the Danube, the Hungarian Parliament is a forest of white pinnacles, pointed arches and buttresses gathered around a great ribbed dome. It is the largest building in Hungary, and seen from the Buda side of the river, its reflection doubling it in the water, it reads as one of the defining images of Budapest. The dome rises to 96 metres, a number chosen on purpose: it recalls the year 896, the traditional date of the Magyar settlement and the founding of the Hungarian principality.

The design came from an international competition won by Imre Steindl. His Gothic Revival scheme, symmetrical and crowned by a Renaissance Revival dome, was chosen partly because it echoed the Palace of Westminster in London, a sign of the parliamentary ambitions of a nation that had recently won self-government within the Habsburg monarchy; Steindl also drew on Vienna's neo-Gothic City Hall. Construction began in 1885, the building was inaugurated in 1896 for the thousandth anniversary of the Hungarian state and finished in 1904. Steindl lost his sight and died before it was complete. The figures are those of a palace: 691 rooms, 29 staircases, 27 gates, 10 courtyards, some 40 million bricks, half a million precious stones and about 40 kg of gold. Some 242 sculptures of Hungarian rulers, Transylvanian princes and military leaders decorate the walls inside and out.

Under the dome, in a sixteen-sided central hall, the Holy Crown of Hungary has been displayed since 2000, together with the other coronation regalia. The building faces Kossuth Square, the ceremonial heart of the city's 5th district, Lipótváros. Budapest itself was formed in 1873 from the union of hilly Buda and Óbuda on the west bank with flat, commercial Pest on the east, and the Parliament stands as the grandest statement of that new capital's confidence.

Getting there

The Parliament stands on Kossuth Lajos Square in Budapest's 5th district, about 1 km from the district centre, and is served by the Kossuth Lajos tér station on metro line M2. The nearest airport is Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport (BUD), about 18 km away.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Budapest 9The Most Beautiful Places in Hungary 12The Most Remarkable Monuments 56The Most Beautiful Squares, Streets and Monuments 173

From the encyclopaedia

The Hungarian Parliament Building, also known as the Parliament of Budapest after its location, is the seat of the National Assembly of Hungary, a notable landmark of Hungary, and a popular tourist destination in Budapest. It is situated on Kossuth Square in the Pest side of the city, on the eastern bank of the Danube. It was designed by Hungarian architect Imre Steindl in neo-Gothic style and opened in 1902. It has been the largest building in Hungary since its completion. The architectural style of the Hungarian parliament building was influenced by the gothic Vienna City Hall, and the renaissance elements like the cupola was influenced by the Maria vom Siege church in Vienna.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

47.50694, 19.04556per Wikidata