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this is the Palace of the parliament
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270 by 240 meters it is one of the
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largest buildings on the planet and it's
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probably the heaviest
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however this concrete giant is small
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compared with a master plan that created
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it
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in the late 1970s Romania's communist
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leader decided he wanted something new
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a socialist Capital that centralizes
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country's political institutions and
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cemented his reign
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over the course of a decade Nikolai
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chaucesku said in motion one of the most
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destructive Master plans in human
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history removing a section of Bucharest
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as large as Venice
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Romania is special located on the
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Eastern end of the European continent
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it's home to one of the most seismically
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active areas in Europe the francian
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mountain range within the carpathians
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produces unusually strong earthquakes
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and on March 4th 1977 Francia produced
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an earthquake measuring more than seven
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on the Richter scale
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in Bucharest it killed more than 1 500
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Romanians destroyed thousands of homes
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and left tens of thousands homeless for
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some Romanians it was one of the worst
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disasters in their lives
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but for one Romanian it was a blessing
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in disguise
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on the pretense of responding to the
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destruction of the earthquake Nikolai
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chaucesku announced that the country
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needed to build a new capital in
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Bucharest City Center
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his plan was designed around three main
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sections one the casa popaluri a massive
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structure designed to hold Romania's
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main political organs two a horizontal
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axis of administrative buildings for the
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bureaucrats and three a massive
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Boulevard lined with luxury apartments
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for the nomenclatura Romania's political
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Elite
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for his massive building chochesku
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needed to scope out a safer location
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some of Romania's communist political
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institutions were damaged in the
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earthquake and this couldn't happen
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again
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so we chose Arsenal Hill a mountain in
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the center of Bucharest that provided
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protection from earthquakes however
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there was a problem because the hill was
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safe it still had an entirely intact
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neighborhood
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actually this wouldn't be a problem for
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chachesco at all he'd just destroy it it
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was only a problem for the people living
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there
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in the mid to early 1970s Romania's
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Communist Party adopted multiple
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National systematization laws
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the fundamental goal was to develop
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backwards regions and prioritize dense
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urban areas over rural ones
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to do this the party ordered villages to
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be converted into miniature cities with
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Civic centers functional zoning and high
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density buildings
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at face value it didn't seem entirely
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bad density can be good but Romania's
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Communists were impatient
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by the mid-1980s the party proposed that
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thousands of villages in Romania had to
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be entirely demolished and the
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population relocated to different
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villages in order to produce denser more
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productive areas
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fortunately for many this didn't end up
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happening Romanians chose Revolution
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over Central planning
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but the individual neighborhoods in
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Bucharest weren't as lucky
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chachescu ordered the destruction of
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more than ten thousand homes and
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forcibly evicted more than fifty
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thousand families
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with a new blank canvas he could start
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building
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he launched a competition and received
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multiple designs
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a big fan of North Korea one of the
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concepts he received looks like it came
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straight out of Pyongyang made by the
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20-something-year-old architect Anka
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petresku she purposely built large paper
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mache models to help convince ciao
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chesku to choose her designs
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and it worked although her North Korean
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design wasn't chosen she proposed
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another variation that did
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considerably thinner than what we know
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the building as today it still featured
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its unique Four Corners
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nonetheless it's hard not to notice how
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different it still looks
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see exactly what you'd expect from a
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communistential planner chachescu was a
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control freak who wasn't very easy to
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please
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he and his equally controlling wife
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would visit the building's construction
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site around three times a week they
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wanted the columns to be Doric Ionic and
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then dork again
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windows that were round now needed to be
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square he needed one more floor than
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another one and then another one
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he destroyed marble staircases ordered
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them rebuilt ordered them destroyed
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again and then ordered them rebuilt
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again
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it had no air conditioning specifically
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because ciaochesku feared a poison
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attack and he would order people to
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measure flowers on decorating columns in
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order to make sure that they were
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symmetrical
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over the course of the building's
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construction it would take up around 30
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percent of the entire country's budget
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and overseeing the entire construction
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and reconstruction was Anka the Chief
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Architect
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who underneath her had 700 other
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individual Architects and thousands of
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workers working in three shifts 24 7.
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because ciao chesku was a man of the
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Romanian people he ordered that the
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entire building should be locally
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sourced from Romanian materials
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his Palace required around 1 million
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cubic meters of marble 550 000 tons of
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cement 700 000 Tons of Steel 2 million
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tons of sand 900 000 cubic meters of
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wood
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3500 tons of Crystal 220
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000 square meters of carpet and 3 500
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square meters of leather
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and his communist cronies created an
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entire Crystal industry in Romania to
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help build thousands of individual
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chandeliers
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while he organized the political
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apparatus that scanned the streets to
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catch and punish families who used more
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than 140 watt light bulb his Palace was
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rigged with tens of thousands
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while he cut Central Heating and hot
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water from Romanian households he
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commanded the construction of a building
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that today requires the same amount of
00:06:08
power as a mid-sized town
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his building is made up of more than one
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thousand individual rooms and has 14
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floors 10 above ground and four beneath
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building is also supposedly fitted with
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an atomic bunker and a tunnel system
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that could have secured an escape in
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case of the need for an evacuation
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unfortunately for Chuchu and his wife
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their tunnels wouldn't be useful enough
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in time
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now that he had a design for his
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building chuchesuku also needed an
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equally Monumental access
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called the victory of socialism
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Boulevard it would purposely be made
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longer than the chandelier
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around 3.5 kilometers in length and 90
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meters wide
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lining is Boulevard are 10 story
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apartment buildings that were intended
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for key members of his party
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from a distance his Boulevard seems like
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it completely disregards the native
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conditions of the city as though the
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buildings were just glued on
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and that's because they were
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the kesku was a Romanian also known as
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the engineer of Heaven
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concerned about the planned communist
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destruction he developed a system to
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move churches and historical buildings
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on Rails this allowed him and others to
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save historical buildings that would
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have otherwise stood in the way of
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chachescu's grand plans
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the last part of chachesco's plan were
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the administrative buildings surrounding
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the Piazza constitui a massive
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semicircle where chachesco was supposed
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to address his people
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unfortunately for Nikolai though the
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building would not be completed in time
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for him to use it
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instead Romanians grew restless and
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they'd end chachu's reign
00:07:51
both him and his wife were sentenced to
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death in a brief military show trial and
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executed via firing squad
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after his death chochesku's Palace
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remained unfinished it was unclear what
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to do with it there were those who
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suggested that it should be demolished
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it was the purest symbol of Communism
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and chachescu's Cult of Personality
00:08:11
and there were also ideas to convert it
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into the world's largest shopping mall
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casino and even into a Dracula theme
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park
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it could have also been densified but
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instead it was chosen to become the home
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of Romania's government
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today it houses both Romania's chamber
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of deputies and the Senate
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it is the biggest Parliament building on
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the planet and the second largest
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Administrative Building second only to
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the Pentagon
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the horizontal axis is still used by
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Ministries and the square is now used
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for concert venues
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the boulevard is also still there of
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course but instead of Apartments being
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filled with members of the nomenclature
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they are some of bucharest's most
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valuable Apartments
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[Music]
00:08:52
although chachesco's plans have now
00:08:54
become integrated and over time have
00:08:56
developed a practical political function
00:08:58
it should never be forgotten what this
00:09:00
building is
00:09:02
it is Europe's largest and youngest
00:09:04
symbol for centralized control and
00:09:06
authoritarian communism
00:09:09
constant reminder of how real it is to
00:09:12
be led by people who live and breathe do
00:09:14
as I say not as I do
00:09:17
this is your life in weeks if you're
00:09:20
lucky enough to turn 80 years old
00:09:23
each week a cube disappears taking away
00:09:26
a piece of your life that you'll never
00:09:28
get back
00:09:29
at first you may not care especially
00:09:32
when you have cubes to spare
00:09:34
but as you get older it becomes clearer
00:09:36
we know that our time binging TV shows
00:09:39
getting angry and regretful requires a
00:09:41
cost each Cube given is one that you'll
00:09:44
never get back
00:09:46
and there's probably no larger Cube
00:09:48
consumer than the job you choose to
00:09:50
dedicate your life to
00:09:52
eighty thousand hours is the amount of
00:09:54
time you'll spend in a career and it's
00:09:56
also the name of the non-profit that
00:09:58
wants to help you find a meaningful one
00:10:01
if your cubes have to go why not give
00:10:03
them to a career that impacts something
00:10:05
you care about
00:10:06
the choice of a career is a hard one but
00:10:09
80 000 hours is here to help you
00:10:12
they've been researching the question
00:10:13
for how you can find a fulfilling career
00:10:15
that also does good for years
00:10:17
they have a website that provides you
00:10:18
their research a podcast and also a
00:10:21
newsletter they have a job board that
00:10:23
provides hundreds of open listings for
00:10:24
potential high impact career paths and
00:10:27
all of their advice and research is free
00:10:29
forever
00:10:31
so if you're not sure what you should do
00:10:32
with your cubes or you're worried about
00:10:34
how you're spending them maybe check out
00:10:36
their in-depth career guide at eighty
00:10:37
thousand hours.org
00:10:40
remember life is short but what you do
00:10:43
with your decreasing time is up to you
00:10:49
foreign
