Dealul Spirii in the context of Dealul Mitropoliei

The National Cathedral (Romanian: Catedrala Națională), also known as the People's Salvation Cathedral (Romanian: Catedrala Mântuirii Neamului), is an Eastern Orthodox cathedral in Bucharest, Romania, built to serve as the patriarchal cathedral of the Romanian Orthodox Church. It is located in central Bucharest on Spirea's Hill (Arsenal Square), facing the Palace of Parliament. At 127 metres (417 ft) tall, the cathedral occupies a dominant position in Bucharest's cityscape, being visible from all approaches to the city.

It is the tallest and largest Eastern Orthodox church building by volume, and area, in the world. The People's Salvation Cathedral will have the largest collection of church mosaics (interior decoration) in the world when it is completed, having about 25,000 square meters. Also the People's Salvation Cathedral has the world's largest Orthodox iconostasis (23.8 meters long and 17.1 meters high) and the world's largest free-swinging church bell.

The Palace of the Parliament (Romanian: Palatul Parlamentului), initially designed during Communist times as the People's House (Casa Poporului) or (less frequently used) the House of the Republic (Casa Republicii), is the seat of the Parliament of Romania, located atop Dealul Spirii in Bucharest, the national capital. The Palace reaches a height of 84 m (276 ft), is 92 m (302 ft) deep underground, has a floor area of 365,000 m (3,930,000 sq ft) and a volume of 2,550,000 m (90,000,000 cu ft). The Palace of the Parliament is the heaviest building in the world, weighing about 4,098,500 tonnes (9.04 billion pounds), and is the largest civilian administrative building in the world, the largest military administrative building being the yet larger US Pentagon (cf. List of largest buildings). The Independent described it as the third best building in the world - "Hideous but also sort of impressive."

The building was designed and supervised by chief architect Anca Petrescu, with a team of approximately 700 architects, and constructed over a period of 13 years (1984–1997) in modernist Neoclassical architectural forms and styles, with socialist realism in mind. The Palace was ordered by Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989), the president of Communist Romania.