Story
The story of Palace of Culture
Legend says this palace has 365 rooms, one for every day of the year. The legend was inherited from the older princely palace on this spot, part of the medieval Princely Court of Moldavia; the actual count is 298 large rooms. The Romanian architect I.D.
Berindei kept the old palace's foundations and first two floors and wrapped them in a flamboyant Neo-Gothic style. Work started in 1906–1907, stalled during World War I, when the unfinished building sheltered troops and military hospitals, and was completed in 1925. King Ferdinand I inaugurated it a year later. For decades it was a palace of justice and administration; since 1955 it has belonged to culture and today houses the four museums of the Moldavia National Museum Complex.
Behind its archaic look hide modern ideas: some rooms are decorated with bois-ciment, a material licensed by Henri Coandă that imitates oak. In the central hall, look down at the mosaic of a Gothic bestiary, with two-headed eagles, dragons, griffons and lions.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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