Sao Bento Palace

Sao Bento Palace in the Estrela district of Lisbon is the seat of the Assembly of the Republic, the parliament of Portugal, and also holds the official residence of the Prime Minister within its grounds. Building began in 1598 as a Benedictine monastery in the Mannerist style, with a church, four cloisters and monastic quarters, and the complex was converted for parliamentary use after Portugal dissolved its religious orders in 1834. Architects Adolfo Marques da Silva and Cristino da Silva reshaped it for legislative use, giving the building its present Neoclassical portico of columns beneath a triangular pediment; after a fire in 1895, architect Miguel Ventura Terra redesigned major sections and created a new lower house chamber, inaugurated in 1903. The palace was declared a National Monument in 2002.