Hungarian Parliament Building
A political manifesto in stone: Hungary's parliament was built to look like Westminster, on purpose, with 40 kg of gold inside.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Budapest offline.
Inaugurated in 1896 on Hungary's presumed 1,000th anniversary, this neo-Gothic building was chosen precisely because it echoed London's Palace of Westminster — Hungarian reformers wanted the architecture itself to announce the country's commitment to Western Europe. Its architect, Imre Steindl, went blind and then died before its 1904 completion. It remains the largest building in Hungary.
What to look for
- The central cupola, drawn not from Gothic tradition but from a Viennese church — the Maria vom Siege in Vienna
- The Danube-facing main facade — the building was always planned to face the river, a decision made when the Diet commissioned the design in 1880
- The neo-Gothic exterior detail: 40 million bricks and half a million precious stones went into the construction
Situated on Kossuth Square on the Pest side, eastern bank of the Danube.
Hungarian Parliament Building is one of 37 sights worth the detour in Budapest, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Budapest pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Budapest
- Buda CastleA palace first raised in 1265, severely damaged in the Siege of Budapest during World War II, and rebuilt by a communist government — the scars and the seams are the story.
- Széchenyi Chain BridgeThe bridge that stitched Buda and Pest into one city — designed in Britain, shipped in sections, and opened in 1849 as one of the world's longest spans.
- Heroes' SquareAt the far end of Andrássy Avenue, a monument built in 1896 fixes the Magyar conquest of 896 AD in stone — seven founding chieftains, national leaders, and the plaza where Hungary reburied Imre Nagy in 1989.
- AquincumMarcus Aurelius is believed to have written parts of the Meditations here — on the Roman empire's frontier, not in Rome.
- St. Stephen's BasilicaThe first King of Hungary's mummified right hand sits in a reliquary here — and the dome above you had to be torn down and rebuilt from nothing after it collapsed in 1858.
- Hungarian State Opera HouseGustav Mahler directed here from 1888 to 1891; the Károly Lotz ceiling paintings he conducted beneath are still there.