Lipótváros, the Kossuth Square and the Hungarian Parliament Building at night - Budapest, Hungary

Location:

GPS coordinates: Latitude 47°30'25", Longitude 19°2'49" (N47 30.42 - E19 2.82) Map

The night illumination of the neo-gothic (gothic revival) and eclectic style Hungarian Parliament Building

The Hungarian Parliament Building ("Országház") in Budapest is an absolutely huge building, therefore it is not so easy to illuminate it in the evening, and also not cheap. Earlier just the dome and the arcades on the Danube side were illuminated. This was changed in 2011 on the national holiday on 20 August, when the new floodlight was turned on. On the west side that overlooks River Danube there are a total of 6821 new energy efficient luminaires, their total power requirement is not less than 100 kW.

The nigh illumination of the whole building was finally inaugurated on 2 August 2014, it was completed together with the reconstruction of the Kossuth Square. The worthy and dignified evening appearance of the stateful building also from the main square side is now guaranteed by a total of 764 electric lamps hidden on the facade and in the vegetation. The metal-halide, sodium-vapor and LED lamps equipped with a yellowish color filter, their total power requirement is 75.5 kW.

Just to mention, but probably thanks to the several lamp types and especially due to the monochromatic yellow light sodiom-vapor lamps it is not so easy to set proper white balance when shooting night photography of the Hungarian Pairlament Building. To tell the truth the only one real monochromatic (single colored, uses just a narrow band of wavelength in the color spectrum) light source is the laser. However the light of a high pressure and especially a low pressure sodium-vapor lamp is approximately monochromatic, so and when using it it is difficult to reveal or distinguish the colors on the illuminated objects, hard for both the camera and the human (scientifically speaking it has low color rendering index or CRI value).