Description

The Patriarchal Palace, known in the communist period as the Palace of the Great National Assembly, is a building located in Bucharest, district 4. Formerly, the edifice was the seat of the legislative institution of the Romanian state: initially the Assembly of Deputies, later the headquarters of the Great National Assembly, after the events of 1989 the seat of the Chamber of Deputies, and then in 1997 the construction becomes the property of the Romanian Patriarchate.

In 1881 the repair and refurbishment of the old building takes place and an amphitheater is added, similar to the Palace of German Deputies (Reichstag). The deputies held their meetings in the meeting room, a room with semicircular seats, in front of it there was a grandstand, and to the right of the grandstand was the bank of ministers. The building was open to the public only outside the meeting hours. Romanian citizens could only take part in the chamber’s work if they had the signature of a deputy on an entrance ticket, foreign citizens needing the signature of their country’s embassy.

In place of the former Royal Divan, in 1907, according to the plans of the architect Dimitrie Maimarolu, the Palace of the Chamber of Deputies is built, a building preserved until now. During the socialist period the edifice functioned as the headquarters of the Great National Assembly, the supreme authority of the state power of the Socialist Republic of Romania.

The facade of the construction was made in neo-classical style, with a length of 80 m. The dome of the building, similar to the one of the Athenaeum, located above the meeting room, is forming the axis of composition of the construction. The four levels of the edifice can be seen from the Naţiunile Unite (United Nations) street.