This unique model was made by an old woman called ILONA MISKEI ,who was born in 1920.She started to build it in 1975 and continued for 14 years.She used 4 and half millions snail shells from the „Pannon”-sea for the building.Ilona collected these fossils from different mines of Hungary and she started them considering the ornamentation of the Parliment. After she rejected some foregin offers ,in 1999 she gave her collection to the ethnographical museum of Keszthely.
The Parliment is one of the symbols of Hungarian people´s pride and national consciousness.This building was inaugrated in the year of Millenium,1896.Its architect is Imre Steindl,who was very ill under the time of building. He was carried on strecher to the half-made building.Unfortunatelly he died some weeks before the inauguration. There are 88 sculptures of Hungarian kings, princes of Transylvania and famous generals on the facade over the windows you can find the most famous families coat-of-arms. The Parliment was built for 17 years by one thousand people who used 40 millions big bricks ,55 thousands carved stones and an interesting fact – 40kg 22 carat gold.The frist long-distance heating system in Hungary was made here.The building is 200 meters far from the furnace . Air –filters are built into the lamps .On the top of the building there was a 3 meters wide red star weighting 3q ,wich could be found here for fourty years.
There are ten yards inside the building ,29 staircases (20 kms long) and 691 different rooms .The lenght of the Parliment is 268 meters It is 96 meters high and high and it has 17.500 m2 area.When the construction was finished,the Parliament was one of the biggest building sin the world.