One of the main landmarks of Hungary’s capital, Budapest, is the Parlament, an imposing Neo-Gothic building located alongside the Danube on the banks of Pest.

Following reimbursement from Vienna, construction of the new parliament building was announced in 1867. Famous architects from many countries were involved including Otto Wagner and Alajos Hauszmann.

It was designed by Imre Steindl. He combined a Baroque floor plan with both Iron and Neo-Gothic structures, heavily influenced by Westminster, the British Parliament.

For seventeen years around a thousand workers were engaged in its construction with forty million bricks, more than five hundred thousand stone blocks and forty kilograms of gold. Thus, at the then unimaginable sum of thirty eight million gold koronas, the largest parliament building in the world was built.

Particularly impressive is the large Assembly Hall in which one chamber of parliament meets beneath the historic painting, Hungarian Conquest by Mihály Munkácsy, and is surrounded by an interior in English decorative style.

Nowhere else is the national pride of the Hungarian people so vividly reflected as in this Neo-Gothic palace. Budapest’s Parlament succeeds in demonstrating the might and wealth of this magnificent country.