Architecture "Cymraeg"

 [Photo from the BBC.]

Yes, it's the Senedd!  That's Welsh, and it's pronounced sɛnɛð...oh yeah, I broke out the IPA.  It's also known as the National Assembly Building, and is essentially the Welsh parliament - I gather there have been some efforts for decentralization or devolution or what-have-you in British government, and so this is where it all happens for Wales. 

It's quite an impressive building, intending to bring together nationalistic history and cosmopolitan technology...I was pretty intimidated when I went there, although that may have been less because of the acoustic panels and computer screens and more because everyone tried speaking Welsh at me.  All I know how to say back to them would have been cariad, the one word I picked out of a song by the Welsh band Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, which means something along the lines of 'beloved'.  Yeah.  I'm not quite comfortable with projecting pseudogaelic hippie vibes to government people?

Inside, you can see this nifty structural device...the brochures I read at the time said it was supposed to represent a tree trunk, but it kind of looks like a smokestack?  (Orrr a mushroom cloud???).  And underneath that is a skylight that illuminates the debate chamber.  Anyway, since its opening in 2006, the Senedd has won several awards for aesthetics as well as environmentalness...it's made from local materials, gets heated geothermally, and! the toilets flush with rainwater collected from the roof.

Oh, and I nearly forgot...the thing is located on Cardiff Bay, where several key Dr Who moments have occurred.  And it's not too far from the Dr Who museum.  So you can just go ahead and scooch this one to the top of your tourist list, eh?