Akadémia street-Kossuth square

So now we are in the 5th district. This is the office area of Budapest. You can find a lot of ministries and embassies here. In this district there are twice more workers than inhabitants because most of the officer jobs are here. The workers come to work by car mostly so the traffic is terrible in this area and it’s almost impossible to find a free parking place. To solve this problem we built under the ground garages e.g. at the Elizabeth square. The 5th district was built up mostly in the 20th century after the „New Building” was destroyed. Then we built new offices, banks, etc. There and built up and reconstructed the whole area.

In a few minutes we will reach the Houses of Parliament on Kossuth square.The square got its name after a monument which was a statue of Louis Kossuth. He was the leader of the Revolution and Freedomfight of 1848-49. For centuries the Hungarian parliamentary assemblies had no home. There was an international competition to design the Parliament in 1882. The committee decided to build the first-, the second- and the third-prize winner buildings on the same square. Imre Steindl designed the first-prize winner building in eclectic style.

-286 ms long, widest point is 118 ms, 96ms high, 691 rooms, 10 courtyards, 27 gates, 29 staircases, length of the staircases together is 20 kms

- József Attila statue, II. Rákóczi Ferenc statue (1935)->to the 200 years anniversery of his death, Ministry of Agriculture and Regional developement->3rd prize, Museum of Etnography->2nd prize (past-> Supreme Court), National Flag->3 colors, Everlasting Flame(1996)->black marble, statue of Kossuth Lajos-> 2nd(1952)

-looks a little bit like the Parliament in London and the townhall of Vienna

-building between 1885-1902, interior finished in 1904

-plan: only Hungarian people, Hungarian materials, 185 million golden crown->30 million, lasted 17 years, 1000 people worked day by day

-most expensive building in Hungary

-area more than 17000 square kms, length of the carpets is almost 3500 ms

-it had 2 chambers-> house of lords and house of commons, in the middle there’s a 96 ms high dome and nowadays the left side is used

-outside walls are decorated with statues of the most important Hungarian personalities, 365 little towers

-the main gate is decorated with lions

-on the main facade there is the Hungarian cought of arms, on the ledge above the main facade you can see cought of arms

-both side of the main staircase is decorated with 4 6 ms high and 4 tonnas weight granet columnes. These were a gift of the Swedish king and only 12 is in the world from these

-40 kgs of 24 karat gold is used to decorate the interior and a lot of man-made marbles-> thats why it’s 4 times expensive

-the interior of the dome is 26 ms high and is decorated with 16 statues of famous people like Saint Stephen, Saint Ladislau, IV. Béla, Matthias, etc.

-the parliament was built on redwood spiles and concrete because of the inland waters

-it has a big library with 1 million books and it can be visited by everyone. The entrance is from the other side, at the Danube.

-In the 2nd World War 250 bombs fell into the building, one into the dome, but fortunately that didn’t work.

-The windows werw taken of and survived in the cellar between sandbags.

-elections in every 4 years, there are the representatives of 6 parties in the parliament

-on 1956. 10. 25. here was the bloodiest day of the revolution. Hundreds of civilians died here by guns and in memory of it there’s a plaque ont he wall of the Ministry of Agriculture