Federal Palace of Switzerland

The Federal Palace, known in German as the Bundeshaus, is the seat of the Swiss federal government and parliament in Bern, a symmetrical complex of three interconnected buildings spanning more than 300 metres along the southwest edge of the city's old town. Its west wing was completed in 1857 to a design by Jakob Friedrich Studer and its east wing in 1892, while the central parliament building, designed by Hans Wilhelm Auer in a neo-Renaissance style beneath a dome rising 64 metres, was finished on April 1, 1902; the flanking wings are built in a plainer neo-Romanesque style using Bernese sandstone. Construction of the parliament building cost 7.2 million Swiss francs, of which more than 16 percent went toward its artistic decoration, and its interior includes a central mosaic bearing the federal coat of arms and the motto Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno, one for all, all for one. The complex, built from some 30 types of stone drawn from 13 Swiss cantons, underwent a comprehensive renovation between 2006 and 2008 costing 103 million francs.