Palace of Culture (Iaşi)

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Palace of Culture - panorama

The Palace of Culture (Romanian: Palatul Culturii) is one of the largest buildings of Romania, located in the city of Iaşi. The building hosts four different museums: The Museum of History, The Museum of Art, The Museum of Ethnography, and The Museum of Science and Technology (named after Ştefan Procopiu). The construction was started in 1906, on the old ruins of the Royal Court of Moldavia (1434), by orders from King Carol I, but during World War I, the construction halted due to the limitation of resources. The monument was finished in 1925 and was inaugurated the following year by King Ferdinand. Three architects were assigned to plan the building (Xenopol, Cerchez, and I. D. Berindei) and they designed it in flamboyant neo-Gothic style. The Palace has 298 large rooms with a total area of 36,000 m² (387,500 ft²), 92 windows in the front part of the building and another 36 inside the building.

Up until 1955, the building served as the main courthouse of the county, with an interruption in World War II, when it was used by German, and later, Soviet troops. From 1975 to 1977, the Palace had its top floor renovated, as wooden structures were replaced in favour of cement and steel. Since 1977 the building has served as a museum.

[edit] The collections

An aerial view of the Iasi cultural palace

The Art Museum has the largest art collection in Romania, with more than 8,000 paintings, out of which 1,000 belong to the national and universal patrimony. The gallery contains works by artists such as Caravaggio, Paolo Veronese, Pietro Liberi, Carlo Dolci, Salvator Rosa, Francesco Solimena, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Anthony van Dyck, Jan Both, Bartholomeus van der Helst, Egbert van Heemskerk II, Nicolas Poussin, Philippe de Champaigne, Eustache Le Sueur, Guillaume Coustou, François Boucher, and many others.

The Moldavian History Museum offers more than 35,000 objects from various fields: archaeology, numismatics, decorative art, ancient books, documents, etc. One of the oldest items, a 70,000-year-old mammoth skull, is from the Middle Palaeolithic Era. Among other items of significance are pottery from the Cucuteni culture, Dacian, Sarmatian, Gothic, and Roman artifacts, and armory and other items of the Middle Ages.