[6] Seven years later, the Diet resolved to establish a new, representative parliament building, expressing the sovereignty of the nation.

An international competition was held, and Imre Steindl emerged as the victor;[7] the plans of two other competitors were later also realized in the form of the Ethnographic Museum and the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture, both facing the Parliament Building.

One reason that Steindl's proposal was chosen is that his neo-Gothic plans bore a strong resemblance with the Palace of Westminster in London.

[citation needed] Since World War II, the legislature has been unicameral, and today the government uses only a small portion of the building, with the other wing occasionally serving to house events.

During the People's Republic of Hungary, a red star perched on the top of the dome, but it was removed in 1990 after the fall of communism.

Mátyás Szűrös declared the Hungarian Republic from the balcony facing Kossuth Lajos Square on 23 October 1989.

Its height of 96 m (315 ft) is an allusion to the purported nation's millennium in 1896, with the establishment of the Principality of Hungary in 896 following the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin.

When entering the Parliament Building, visitors can walk up great ornamental stairs, see frescoes on the ceiling, and pass by the bust of the architect Imre Steindl in a wall niche.