#Anca Petrescu Architect

[suetravelblog]

Palace of the Parliament Bucharest Romania

Palace of the Parliament Bucharest Romania

Palace of the Parliament – DestiMap The Palace of Parliament or People’s House is “according to the World Record Academy, the heaviest and most expensive civil administrative building in the world”. Completed in 1997, it cost almost 4 billion Euros to build. In the administrative building category, it’s second in size only to the US Pentagon. The building has 12 levels above ground and 8…

[chasingcrystal]

Happy Monday y’all! Hello from the Palace of Parliament in Bucharest, Romania! Just grand. The scale of this building is so big that I had to park wayyy on the other side of the street and set my tripod even further to capture the entirety of this building. This was completed in 1997 and took 13 years to construct. The building was designed and supervised by chief architect Anca Petrescu, with a team of approximately 700 architects. 700 architects! Isn’t that freaking insane?! That’s enough jobs for my professional network and all 6 degrees of their archi-friends! 🙀 Sometimes the facts about some of these monuments are as impressive as the structures themselves. Are there any buildings that just absolutely amaze you with some of their facts? Let’s tackle this week yall! 💪😼 #chasingcrystal #palaceofparliament #palaceofparliamentbucharest #buchareststyle #bucharestromania #romaniatravel #asianwomen #hondadualsport #dualsportlife (at Palace of the Parliament, Bucharest, Romania) https://www.instagram.com/p/ChlO7srP1o5/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[habunderscoreb]

turns out i’m really bored at 12 am. here is the palace of the parliament

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament

LOOK at this thing. holy mother of god it looks intimidating. 

so this is the palace of the parliament hailing from bucharest, romania.

it looks old, but wikipedia is saying construction began in 1984 and ended in 1997. so it’s actually not ridiculously old even though it just... gives me that vibe. 

it has 23 SECTIONS, houses the senate and chamber of deputies (the two chambers of the parliament of romania), has THREE museums and an international conference center. in addition to having all of this cool shit it is also the fattest building with the fattest ass weighting in at 4 million tonnes (9.04 billion pounds!). and also it is the “most expensive administrative building” costing FOUR BILLION EUROS. even heating, electricity, and lighting exceeds SIX MILLION DOLLARS per year!

i looked it up and thats just above the cost of a bugatti divo (just look up a picture of it, it’s a very very expensive car and i’m not gonna put a pic of a supercar on a post about buildings lol, but it is VERY expensive).

aside from housing very super important people, it has a freaking restaurant. but only politicians can eat at it. 

look how FREAKING NICE it is. i just hope the food is good lol, otherwise, it should put more funds towards food :) because food is good.

there was apparently also a proposition to repurpose the entire building into “a shopping centre and entertainment complex” and that the romanian parliament should fuck off to another building, but it was dismissed as a joke. rightfully so, i guess. i mean why would i not want to be in this huge absolutely massive fortress?

ok fuck apparently the heirs of the chief architect Anca Petrescu (bless her soul) have imposed a 2% royalty fee on commercial uses of the palace’s image. i hope i dont have to pay for it lol

OK apparently the construction of the palace is still “uncomplete” to this day. but the wikipedia page said it was completed in 1997?? i don’t understand.

anyway, moving on to the technical details section!

so the building has 8 underground levels. the deepest of which is a FUCKING NUCLEAT BUNKER, with 4.9-ft-concrete walls that are “impervious to radiation”. in this bunker the main hall has telephone connections to EVERY military unit in romania. there are residential apartments for state leadership as well just in case a war happens. 

below is (i think) a picture of the nuclear bunker. even though it’s a bunker it does look ridiculously snazzy!

3.9 million square feet in area, it ranks third in administrative buildings behind the Pentagon at 6.6 million square feet. its also very super big in terms of volume, clocking in at 90 million cubic feet. for comparison the volume of the great pyramid of giza is 92 million cubic feet, just above the palace’s. some people, as a result, have called it “pharaonic” because of how fucking large it is. truly beautiful.

because of its big dumpy it sinks 0.24 inches each year due to this weight. the layers of sediment below are settling because of its huge size.

3500 tonnes of crystal were manufactured, used to build chandeliers (which took two years to manufacture btw!), ceiling lights, and mirrors. 700 THOUSAND tonnes of steel and bronze were for huge doors and windows, and the chandeliers as well. ONE MILLION cubic meters of marble, 900 THOUSAND cubic meters of wood (very diverse kinds, including walnut, oak, sweet cherry, elm, sycamore maple) and 200,000 square meters of WOOL CARPETS!! and you can’t forget the silver and gold that adorns the curtains. absolutely massive and ornate. 

speaking of ornate check out pictures of the inside:

ridiculously extravagant building. i love this because it’s more old-fashioned compared to the modern apple park that i covered earlier. this to me looks really appealing and i hope i can one day visit this huge building for myself and see it with my own eyes

[architectuul]

Totalitarian Structures Of Power

This week will our architectural journey focus on the totalitarian ruins from different regimes. While the size of such architectures was built to be admired (same as regimes constructing them), their monumentality start to decay already before completed. What has been left are ruins of fears and unfinished sorrows. An alternative group Laibach had the first time in history a rock concert in Pyongyang, North Korea. Their position is since the 1980s constructed on the fact that “art and totalitarianism are not mutually exclusive. Totalitarian regimes abolish the illusion of revolutionary individual artistic freedom.” We will come back to this, but first shall we travel back in 1939.

The time when a colossal Nazi building complex Prora was built on the island of Rügen in Germany. Although the 4.5 kilometers beach resort was planned as a holiday resort, it was never used for this purpose. During the construction all major companies of the Reich and nearly 9,000 workers were involved in this project designed by Clemens Klotz, who won a competition overseen by Hitler's chief architect Albert Speer. 

The resort should house 20,000 holidaymakers, under the ideal that every worker deserves a holiday at the beach. | Photo via Inquistr

Prora was never finished and was already as a ruin between 1945 and 1955  occupied by the Soviet Army's 2nd Artillery Brigade. In the late 1950s the East German military changed the complex into a restricted military area, which was planned to be demolished after German reunification. As later was given landmark protection a tax break offered the complex to developers for renovation or maybe complete decay. Beside Prora has the Nazi regime started a construction of the most important infrastructure project between 1923 and 1929.

The construction of the Tempelhof airport in Berlin was meant to be consistent with its role as a world airport, but also to serve as a propagandistic expression of the Nazi regime's self-image. In 1934 Hitler arranged the expansion of the airport, setting the course for its dual use as a civilian and military airfield. He had previously established the site's connection to the city's north-south axis, which had been an early part of his envisaged plans for the redesign of the capital. 

The Reich Air Ministry financed and managed the project, which was commissioned to Ernst Sagebiel. The entire complex is axially aligned with Karl Friedrich Schinkel's Kreuzberg Monument, which during the Nazi era served as a gathering point for midsummer solstice celebrations. A link between the airport and the monument was planned in the form of a cascade of water tumbling down the side of the Kreuzberg hill. Flanked by two obelisks, the waterfall was to have ended in the square in front of the airport terminal, where a magnificent fountain was envisaged. 

The methaporical proposal for the new mountain in Berlin at the Tempelhof airport. | Photo via The Berg

Ambitious project for the reconstruction of the capital with the Communist totalitarian architecture was started in Romania by Nicolae Ceausescu after the earthquake in 1977. The Ceausescu Palace in Bucharest was the center of this project and an intended replica of the Communist mausoleum Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang. 

Is the view from the balcony from the Palace in Bucharest or Pyongyang?

The construction of the Ceausescu Palace was coordinated by Anca Petrescu, helped by the team of 10 architects, which supervised a further 700. It began in 1984 and it is still unfinished. Only 400 rooms out of 1.100 are used, which is 30% of the whole building. As Ceausescu feared nuclear war has the building eight underground levels, the last one being an anti-atomic bunker. The building is the world's second-largest administrative building, immediately after the Pentagon. The headquarters of the United States Department of Defense in Washington was designed by George Bergstrom and is the world's largest office building with five sides, five floors above ground, two basement levels, and five ring corridors per floor with a total of 28.2 km. The Pentagon is from the perspective of Laibach defined more as an imperial that totalitarian architecture, as their tour accros USA was named the Divided States of America. The imperial power gathers in the central pentagon plaza, the ground zero, which originating during the Cold War on the presumption that it would be targeted by the Soviet Union at the outbreak of nuclear war.

The plane attack on Pentagon on 09/11/ 2001. | Photos via Beforeitsnews 

As a Cold War response to the completion of the world's tallest hotel, the Westin Stamford Hotel in Singapore in 1986 we are ending this voyage with the unfinished Phantom Hotel in North Korea. Even though the Ryugyong Hotel, a 105 floor skyscraper in Pyongyang dominates the skyline, official information regarding the hotel have proven difficult to obtain. 

Though mocked-up images of the completed hotel had once appeared on North Korean stamps, the North Korean government denied the building's existence for many years. The government manipulated official photographs in order to remove the structure, and excluded it from printed maps of Pyongyang.

And now back in 2015, when Laibach performed in Pyongyang, where Laibach Kunst is the principle of conscious rejection of personal tastes, judgments, convictions; free depersonalization, voluntary acceptance of the role of ideology, demasking and recapitulation of the regime “art”.

[kelliesimpson]

we went for a tour of the palace of parliament! it was fascinating. Nicolae Ceaușescu had 60,000 people working on this building per day - 20,000 people for 8 hours in 3 shifts. Anca Petrescu was the selected architect, at only age 28. 700 more architects were required for the project. Not only did Nicolae have 60,000 people/day, but he also had 40,000 people move out of their homes so that he could build the building where he wanted to. 

the architecture inside the building was rather dull - very communist. Nicolae was paranoid that someone would poison him so he didn’t have air conditioning installed. the rooms inside were just massive, and he had his own gigantic office. of course, he never got to use the building but he was executed before the building was completed.

10.22.17

[tommeurs]

Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania. Built from 1984-1997 for 3 billion euros. Designed by 700 architects under direction of chief architect by Anca Petrescu. [1920×1090]

[cozycreatives]

Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania. Built from 1984-1997 for 3 billion euros. Designed by 700 architects under direction of chief architect by Anca Petrescu. [1920×1090] https://ift.tt/2qXUN2O

[philosibies]

Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania. Built from 1984-1997 for 3 billion euros. Designed by 700 architects under direction of chief architect by Anca Petrescu. [1920×1090] via /r/ArchitecturePorn https://www.reddit.com/r/ArchitecturePorn/comments/dqd357/palace_of_the_parliament_in_bucharest_romania/?utm_source=ifttt

[classicisminmodernity]

‪Elena Ceaucescu's palace, Bucharest, Romania. Began in the 1980s, but it was never finished. ‬ ‪Architect was possibly Anca Petrescu.‬ Photo by Alberto Sancho Montagut

[connorrenwick]

Design Milk Travels to… Bucharest, Romania

Bucharest may have been slow to ride the waves of gritty-to-glam resurgence that plowed through the other capitals of Eastern Europe earlier in the decade. But the post-communist capital of Romania is in its own quiet prime and has a humble beat to its step: streets see-saw between ornate communist structures and buildings falling into tender disrepair; modern restaurants are encased in brutal Neo-classical facades but resonate with laughter and warmth inside. Walking around, there are plenty of surprises to be had, parks to linger at, and monuments to uncover.

Where to Stay

Intercontinental Hotel in Bucharest \\\ Photo: Keshia Badalge

Intercontinental Hotel Bucharest \\\ Photo: courtesy of IHG

The InterContinental Hotel in Bucharest was the first skyscraper to be built in Bucharest and continues to be an imposing landmark in the city center, towering above the Bucharest National Theatre. The moon-shaped curve of the building allows each room to have a unique panorama of the city – so much so that during the Romanian Revolution of 1989, it was the go-to spot for foreign press to observe the protests in University Square.

In the morning, unobstructed sunshine creates beautiful auras on your balcony window. Room rates start at $35/night, which includes use of the spa area, gym, and a splendid intercontinental breakfast in the morning – for a five-star hotel, I’ve never met a deal quite like it.

Photo: courtesy Intercontinental Hotel Bucharest

Where I found myself spending the most time was on the rooftop pool and spa. The white ceilings, muted color palette, and pale timber furnishings lend this 22nd-floor wellness oasis an airy Scandi aesthetic. After a day of walking from one end of the town to the other, I looked forward to nothing more than to sit in the jacuzzi and observe Bucharesti traffic slow down to a steady shimmer on the main concourse.

Watching the sun set and the lights come on from the Intercontinental Hotel in Bucharest \\\ Photo: Keshia Badalge

The Mansion Boutique Hotel in Bucharest \\\ Photo: courtesy of the hotel

If you’re looking to live in Bucharest’s Old Town, the adults-only Mansion Boutique Hotel is where you’d want to be. While it has an imposing historic facade, its interiors are outfitted to be elegant and classy, and the themed rooms are anything but bland. Your room options include Zen, Industrial, Art Deco, French, but the most popular option is the Transylvania room, complete with handcrafted furniture and floral motifs.

The Mansion Hotel in Bucharest \\\ Photo: courtesy of the hotel

Photo: courtesy of the hotel

Photo: courtesy of the hotel

Notable mentions: Hotel Novotel Bucharest City Centre \\ Hilton Garden Inn Bucharest Old Town

Where To Visit

Photo: Keshia Badalge

To see Communism in all its splendor (or megalomania, as you see fit), you’ll want to visit the hulking mastiff of a building, the Palace of Parliament. Designed by chief architect Anca Petrescu with the help of approximately 700 architects over the span of 13 years, this Totalitarian and Neoclassical building personifies the sweeping socialist realism that took hold of Romania under Nicolae Ceaușescu, the dictator and personality of Communist Romania. It’s currently valued at €3 billion, making it the most expensive administrative building in the world; it’s also one of the most massive buildings in the world, even exceeding the volume of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Heads up: you’ll have to bring your passport in order to gain entry to this building.

MNAC, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest \\\ Photo :courtesy of MNAC

After a heady serving of history and diplomacy at the Palace of Parliament, you’ll want to pop over to its new glass wing, which houses MNAC – Muzeul Național de Artă Contemporană al României, the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest. Once you’ve had enough indoor time, the lawns of the Parliament Palace that make up Izvor Park are perfect for lounging around or grabbing a snack.

Caru’ cu Bere serves hearty, traditional Romanian fare \\\ Photo: Keshia Badalge

For a more substantial meal, you can’t go wrong with the classical Romanian gastronomical icon, Caru’ cu Bere. With 130 years serving the thoroughfare on Stavropoleos Street, even locals have deemed this Gothic Revival restaurant “the soul of Bucharest.”

Stavropoleos Monastery at sunset \\\ Photo: Keshia Badalge

When you’ve got your fill of their house speciality of confit pork and braised sour cabbage, dip into the Stavropoleos Monastery down the road, an Eastern Orthodox stone monastery with stone-carved decoration and artful frescoes, where, if you come at the right time, you might just get to watch the nuns at work.

Stavropoleos Monastery \\\ Photo: Keshia Badalge

The Botanical Gardens of Bucharest are home to over 4,000 m² of greenhouses dotted along landscaped fields.

If being surrounded by grand draping plants and the natural warmth of greenhouses excite you, the Bucharest Botanical Gardens, with over 10,000 species of plants, can provide a delightful stroll. Or, to fully wind down, Bucharest even has the biggest wellness and entertainment center in Europe: Therme Bucharest, a tropical paradise with 9 swimming pools and 10 themed saunas under a modern glass and steel structure. If you want to take your experience up a notch, ask for Aufguss, an exhilarating, modern sauna ritual that’s meant to entertain your senses through smells and storytelling.

Notable mentions: Romanian Athenaeum \\ Revolution Square \\ Arcul de Triumf \\ Cișmigiu Gardens

Where To Shop

Exploring the city center of Bucharest is easy enough on foot and there are plenty of modern design stores housed in old facades.

Photo: Keshia Badalge

One of the Old Town’s main draws is the grand, regal bookstore, Cărturești Carusel – it’s housed in an architectural gem of a building and is often cited as one of the most beautiful bookstores in Europe. Over four expansive floors, you can sip coffee at a cafe, browse English and Romanian texts, or shop for contemporary gifts to take home.

Spiral staircases at Cărturești Carusel \\\ Photo: Keshia Badalge

The Romanian design store dizainar is always on the look out for young local design talents and is always a strong presence at the annual Romanian Design Week. Photo: Keshia Badalge

Most young designers in Romania have their eyes on being stocked at dizainar, and it’s obvious why: this cosy design store has consistently picked out promising Romanian designers and delivered their products through the dizainar online platform to the rest of Europe. It’s a ticket to being recognized both in your country and outside of it, and dizainar currently carries all kinds of furniture, lighting, accessories, ceramics, and books. If you’re looking for the holy grail of contemporary Romanian design, you’ll be in heaven here.

Mushroom salt and pepper shakers at dizainar \\\ Photo: Keshia Badalge

The CD section at Carturesti Verona. There’s dozens of sections dedicated to CDs, DVDs, clothes, accessories, bags, teas and more.

If you’re more into a laid-back, Carturesti Verona is an enchanting book shop, records store, tea room, and backyard hang out spot in one location. There’s a sizable collection of design, art, and architecture books that you can get lost in, but what we enjoyed most was simply walking around the expansive store, discovering new rooms hidden in small nooks and the treasures they held, like antique copper cups stacked around the staircase, carefully knitted scarves by the corner windows, or trendy color block izipizi glasses.

Final Thoughts

Walking around Bucharest in the evening \\\ Photo: Keshia Badalge

We were pleasantly surprised by all that Bucharest had to offer from dawn to dusk. Whether it’s relishing in the pleasures of an affordable and piping-hot pretzels at a traditional Romanian bakery in the morning, dancing to street performers serenading foot passengers in the Old Town, having a moment of quiet watching nuns pray in the monastery, or walking into the antique store to get a traditional Romanian hand painted egg, there are many treasures to be uncovered here in Bucharest – and the best time to visit might be now, before all the cosy wooden buildings are upheaved and retrofitted with modern interiors and the scars of Communism are bleached from the buildings’ facades. You’ll have to see it for yourself.

If you’ve traveled to Bucharest, Romania and have any additional favorite spots or recommendations for first time visitors, let us know below so we can share (and also check it out ourselves the next time we’re there).

via http://design-milk.com/

from WordPress https://connorrenwickblog.wordpress.com/2020/01/23/design-milk-travels-to-bucharest-romania/

[evergibwanders]

The Palace of The Parliament is the world’s largest and heaviest building 🏢 as conceived by Nicolae Ceausescu, the Communist dictator of Romania in the 1980s. Led by 28-year old chief architect, Anca Petrescu 👩🏻 the construction of the “People’s House” is still unfinished with only 400 out of 1,100 rooms used. 🤦🏻‍♀️ (at Bucharest, Romania)

[digiclot]

The Palace of the Parliament is a symbol of Ceausescu’s megalomania and of the extravagant lives lead by the former communist leader. But did you know that?: • The Palace of Parliament is the second largest administrative building just after the Pentagon, its includes 400 chambers and 2 large halls and it's even bigger than Cheops' Pyramid. • Like The Great Wall of China and the Pentagon, The Palace of the Parliament is visible from the Moon. • The construction process involved 400 architects and they were coordinated by a woman architect named Anca Petrescu of the age of only 27 years-old. It was all about the size and Anca wins Ceausescu over by showcasing the grandeur of the project. • All the materials used to build the Palace were of Romanian origin across the country: marble, wood essences, crystal, carpets and calf skin. The only exceptions are the doors of Nicolae Balcescu Hall, received as a gift by Ceausescu from his friend, the African dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, who was back then the President of the Republic of Zaire. • As Ceausescu was a very cautious man he designed secret passages and mysterious tunnels hidden beneath the Palace of the Parliament so he can get away below ground in case of a Revolution. • Currently, this impressive building houses the Romanian Senate and the Romanian Chamber of Deputies. • • • 📍Bucharest, Romania 🇷🇴 • • • 📸 The Palace of The Parliament • • • #romaniafrumoasa #romaniawow #romaniamea #romaniatravel #romania #romaniapitoreasca #topromaniaphoto #bucharestStreets #bucharestcityfeelings #buchareststyle #travelbloggerlife #thetravelwomen #wearetravelgirls #globelletravels #girlsmeetglobe #dametraveller #wearetravelgirls #outdoorwomen #wildernessbabes #ladiesgoneglobal #globelletravels #girlslovetravel #sheisnotlost #viewporn #girlsthatwander #citizenfemme #travelcolorfully #womantraveller #shetravels #parliament

[2t2b2006]

Le palais du parlement ex Palais du peuple. Il a coûté ¼ du PIB du pays et l'a quasiment ruiné. Construction en 1985. Le 2eme bâtiment le plus grand du monde après le Pentagone. Les travaux nécessitèrent la destruction de 520 hectares de la ville de Bucarest (1/5 de la superficie totale du centre historique de la ville), avec la démolition ou le déplacement d'une trentaine d'églises et de 7 000 maisons. Celle-ci entraîna l'expulsion et le relogement de 40 000 personnes dans des immeubles parfois insalubres, sans eau, ni gaz, ni électricité, car non terminés. 600 architectes et 20 000 ouvriers travaillent sur le chantier jour et nuit, sous la coordination de l'architecte Anca Petrescu, jeune femme alors âgée de 35 ans. Le projet aura coûté jusqu'à 40 % du PIB du pays annuel pendant sa construction. Des carrières de marbres, et en particulier de rare marbre rose sont épuisées pour sa construction ; des villages roumains entiers sont mis à contribution, par exemple pour le façonnage de cristal ; des monastères sont chargés par exemple du tissage des longs rideaux de soie et de fil d'or. (Source Wikipedia)..