Old Royal Palace, Athens

The Old Royal Palace on Syntagma Square in Athens was built as the first royal palace of modern Greece and has served as the seat of the Hellenic Parliament since 1929. Designed by the Bavarian architect Friedrich von Gartner and completed in 1843 to house the Greek royal family, the Neoclassical, Greek Revival building takes the form of a massive rectangular three story structure with two axes of symmetry, its east and west facades running about 90 meters and its north and south facades about 80 meters, around four exterior wings and two internal courtyards. King Ludwig the First of Bavaria, father of the first king of Greece, reportedly demanded classical simplicity and rejected decorative excess, so Gartner relied on restrained Doric and Ionic porticoes and horizontal bands linking the windowsills to give the building an imposing yet serene character. Today it holds the office of the President of the Hellenic Parliament, the offices of the vice presidents, the cabinet meeting room, the chamber's television channel and other administrative services.