Hungarian Parliament Building

Where it sits. The Hungarian Parliament stands on the Pest bank of the Danube at Kossuth Lajos tér, facing the river with the Buda hills and the Fisherman's Bastion directly opposite. It was deliberately sited to be seen from the water: 268 metres of neo-Gothic frontage, a spread of pinnacles and flying buttresses, and a central dome rising 96 metres — a height it shares with St Stephen's Basilica, both numbers chosen to mark 896, the year of the Magyar conquest, and both capped by law so that nothing in the city rises higher. It remains the largest building in Hungary. The square in front holds the Ethnographic Museum's former home and the Ministry of Agriculture, both built to designs by architects who lost the parliament competition, and an underground memorial to the shootings of 25 October 1956.

The story behind it. After Buda, Óbuda and Pest were united into a single city in 1873, the Diet resolved to build a parliament that would state Hungarian sovereignty in stone. An international competition was held in the early 1880s and won by Imre Steindl. His neo-Gothic scheme resembled the Palace of Westminster, which was the point: reforming Hungarian politicians looked to Britain as their model, and the resemblance was read as a statement of allegiance to Western constitutionalism. Construction began in 1885 and the building was inaugurated for the millennium celebrations of 1896, though the keys were handed over only in 1902 and work continued until 1904. The numbers are the sort that get repeated because they are true: roughly 40 million bricks, half a million precious stones, 40 kilograms of gold leaf, 691 rooms, ten courtyards, 27 gates and about 20 kilometres of stairs. Steindl went blind before it was finished and died before its completion. The interior was designed for a bicameral legislature, giving two mirror-image debating chambers; since 1945 the parliament has been unicameral, so one chamber is used for sessions and the other for conferences and ceremonies. A red star sat on the dome through the communist decades and came down in 1990; on 23 October 1989 Mátyás Szűrös declared the Hungarian Republic from the balcony facing the square. The Holy Crown of Hungary, with the sceptre, orb and coronation sword, has been displayed under the dome since 2000.

On screen. Budapest is the most heavily used doubling city in Europe, and this building is its signature image — usually in an establishing shot, rarely as a set, because a working legislature does not hand its chambers to film units. The city around it does the real work. Evita used 23 Budapest locations across five weeks in 1996 to stand in for 1940s Buenos Aires. A Good Day to Die Hard shot here from April 2012 with Budapest playing Moscow, running its vehicle stunts out at the Hungaroring circuit in Mogyoród. Spy filmed principally in Budapest in 2014, using the city as itself and also as Paris and Rome. Blade Runner 2049 is the sharpest illustration of the split between location and fabrication: it was shot mostly over four months in 2016 on soundstages at Korda Studios and the Origo backlot, with interiors of the Budapest Stock Exchange palace on Szabadság tér doubling for a Las Vegas casino and the derelict Inota and Kelenföld power plants supplying its industrial ruins — none of the film's Los Angeles is a Budapest street. Marvel came in June 2019 for Black Widow, and here the city plays itself: Natasha Romanoff returns to the Budapest of her past, and a chase was staged on real streets using thirteen BMW X3s, modified with hydraulic handbrakes and with the electronic stability control switched off, before Industrial Light & Magic added the rest.

What you actually see today. Visits are by guided tour only, in a range of languages, and cover the grand staircase with its 96 steps, the gilded and frescoed domed hall where the crown jewels stand under guard, the old upper house chamber, and the corridors with their numbered cigar holders where members left their cigars burning during debates. Tours last around 45 minutes, require airport-style security and a booked time slot, and are cancelled when the house is sitting. Outside, walk the riverside terrace and then the square, where the 1956 memorial is worth the descent.

Getting there and timing. Kossuth Lajos tér has its own station on metro line M2, and trams 2 and 2A along the embankment give the best moving view of the facade. Tickets sell out days ahead in summer; book through the official visitor centre rather than resellers, and bring identification. The best photographs are taken from the Buda side — Batthyány tér, the Fisherman's Bastion, or a river boat — in the half hour after sunset, when the floodlights come on and the stone turns amber against a blue sky.