Located in London, the Palace of Westminster is the meeting place of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Known colloquially as the Houses of Parliament, it is one of the centers of political life in the UK. The palace has been a Grade I listed building since 1970 and has been part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987. Its Elizabeth Tower houses the famous bell nicknamed Big Ben.
The building was originally constructed in the eleventh century as a royal palace and served as the primary residence of the kings of England until 1512, when a fire destroyed the royal apartments. While the monarch moved to the adjacent Palace of Whitehall, the remainder of the palace continued to serve as the home of the Parliament of England. In 1834, a second fire destroyed the majority of the palace, though the eleventh-century Westminster Hall was saved and incorporated into the replacement building.
The competition to design the new palace was won by the architect Charles Barry, who chose a Gothic Revival style for the building. Construction started in 1840 and lasted for 30 years, suffering delays, cost overruns, and the deaths of Barry and his assistant, Augustus Pugin. This new palace is notable for its ornate decoration and contributed to the proliferation of Gothic Revival architecture in other places.
The palace contains chambers for the House of Commons, House of Lords, and the monarch, and has a floor area of 1,210,680 ft2 (112,476 m2). Extensive repairs had to be made after the Second World War, including rebuilding the destroyed Commons chamber. Despite further conservation work having been carried out since, the palace is still in need of some repairs.
Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons
Written by Nicolo Ciampini
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