The home of Belize's bicameral parliament — the House of Representatives and the Senate — sits at the heart of Belmopan's government quarter. The building is deliberately reminiscent of Mayan architecture, with a low stepped profile and a ceremonial plaza in front. It is the physical embodiment of the new capital's founding ambition.
Public access is limited, but the exterior and the plaza around it are worth a look. The surrounding government complex, built largely in the 1960s and 1970s, has a certain retro-functionalist quality — an entire capital conceived from scratch, all at once. Few countries have attempted that experiment and survived it.