this is the Palace of the parliament 270 by 240 meters it is one of the largest buildings on the planet and it's probably the heaviest however this concrete giant is small compared with a master plan that created it in the late 1970s Romania's communist leader decided he wanted something new a socialist Capital that centralizes country's political institutions and cemented his reign over the course of a decade Nikolai chaucesku said in motion one of the most destructive Master plans in human history removing a section of Bucharest as large as Venice Romania is special located on the
Eastern end of the European continent it's home to one of the most seismically active areas in Europe the francian mountain range within the carpathians produces unusually strong earthquakes and on March 4th 1977 Francia produced an earthquake measuring more than seven on the Richter scale in Bucharest it killed more than 1 500 Romanians destroyed thousands of homes and left tens of thousands homeless for some Romanians it was one of the worst disasters in their lives but for one Romanian it was a blessing in disguise on the pretense of responding to the destruction of the earthquake Nikolai
chaucesku announced that the country needed to build a new capital in Bucharest City Center his plan was designed around three main sections one the casa popaluri a massive structure designed to hold Romania's main political organs two a horizontal axis of administrative buildings for the bureaucrats and three a massive Boulevard lined with luxury apartments for the nomenclatura Romania's political Elite for his massive building chochesku needed to scope out a safer location some of Romania's communist political institutions were damaged in the earthquake and this couldn't happen again so we chose Arsenal Hill a mountain in the center
of Bucharest that provided protection from earthquakes however there was a problem because the hill was safe it still had an entirely intact neighborhood actually this wouldn't be a problem for chachesco at all he'd just destroy it it was only a problem for the people living there in the mid to early 1970s Romania's Communist Party adopted multiple National systematization laws the fundamental goal was to develop backwards regions and prioritize dense urban areas over rural ones to do this the party ordered villages to be converted into miniature cities with Civic centers functional zoning and high density buildings
at face value it didn't seem entirely bad density can be good but Romania's Communists were impatient by the mid-1980s the party proposed that thousands of villages in Romania had to be entirely demolished and the population relocated to different villages in order to produce denser more productive areas fortunately for many this didn't end up happening Romanians chose Revolution over Central planning but the individual neighborhoods in Bucharest weren't as lucky chachescu ordered the destruction of more than ten thousand homes and forcibly evicted more than fifty thousand families with a new blank canvas he could start building he
launched a competition and received multiple designs a big fan of North Korea one of the concepts he received looks like it came straight out of Pyongyang made by the 20-something-year-old architect Anka petresku she purposely built large paper mache models to help convince ciao chesku to choose her designs and it worked although her North Korean design wasn't chosen she proposed another variation that did considerably thinner than what we know the building as today it still featured its unique Four Corners nonetheless it's hard not to notice how different it still looks see exactly what you'd expect from
a communistential planner chachescu was a control freak who wasn't very easy to please he and his equally controlling wife would visit the building's construction site around three times a week they wanted the columns to be Doric Ionic and then dork again windows that were round now needed to be square he needed one more floor than another one and then another one he destroyed marble staircases ordered them rebuilt ordered them destroyed again and then ordered them rebuilt again it had no air conditioning specifically because ciaochesku feared a poison attack and he would order people to measure
flowers on decorating columns in order to make sure that they were symmetrical over the course of the building's construction it would take up around 30 percent of the entire country's budget and overseeing the entire construction and reconstruction was Anka the Chief Architect who underneath her had 700 other individual Architects and thousands of workers working in three shifts 24 7. because ciao chesku was a man of the Romanian people he ordered that the entire building should be locally sourced from Romanian materials his Palace required around 1 million cubic meters of marble 550 000 tons of cement
700 000 Tons of Steel 2 million tons of sand 900 000 cubic meters of wood 3500 tons of Crystal 220 000 square meters of carpet and 3 500 square meters of leather and his communist cronies created an entire Crystal industry in Romania to help build thousands of individual chandeliers while he organized the political apparatus that scanned the streets to catch and punish families who used more than 140 watt light bulb his Palace was rigged with tens of thousands while he cut Central Heating and hot water from Romanian households he commanded the construction of a building
that today requires the same amount of power as a mid-sized town his building is made up of more than one thousand individual rooms and has 14 floors 10 above ground and four beneath building is also supposedly fitted with an atomic bunker and a tunnel system that could have secured an escape in case of the need for an evacuation unfortunately for Chuchu and his wife their tunnels wouldn't be useful enough in time now that he had a design for his building chuchesuku also needed an equally Monumental access called the victory of socialism Boulevard it would purposely
be made longer than the chandelier around 3.5 kilometers in length and 90 meters wide lining is Boulevard are 10 story apartment buildings that were intended for key members of his party from a distance his Boulevard seems like it completely disregards the native conditions of the city as though the buildings were just glued on and that's because they were the kesku was a Romanian also known as the engineer of Heaven concerned about the planned communist destruction he developed a system to move churches and historical buildings on Rails this allowed him and others to save historical buildings
that would have otherwise stood in the way of chachescu's grand plans the last part of chachesco's plan were the administrative buildings surrounding the Piazza constitui a massive semicircle where chachesco was supposed to address his people unfortunately for Nikolai though the building would not be completed in time for him to use it instead Romanians grew restless and they'd end chachu's reign both him and his wife were sentenced to death in a brief military show trial and executed via firing squad after his death chochesku's Palace remained unfinished it was unclear what to do with it there were
those who suggested that it should be demolished it was the purest symbol of Communism and chachescu's Cult of Personality and there were also ideas to convert it into the world's largest shopping mall casino and even into a Dracula theme park it could have also been densified but instead it was chosen to become the home of Romania's government today it houses both Romania's chamber of deputies and the Senate it is the biggest Parliament building on the planet and the second largest Administrative Building second only to the Pentagon the horizontal axis is still used by Ministries and
the square is now used for concert venues the boulevard is also still there of course but instead of Apartments being filled with members of the nomenclature they are some of bucharest's most valuable Apartments [Music] although chachesco's plans have now become integrated and over time have developed a practical political function it should never be forgotten what this building is it is Europe's largest and youngest symbol for centralized control and authoritarian communism constant reminder of how real it is to be led by people who live and breathe do as I say not as I do this is
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