The Palace of Culture is an edifice located in Iaşi

Iasi

Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...

, Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

. The building served as Administrative Palace and then Palace of Justice until 1955, when its destination was changed again, being assigned to the four museums nowadays united under the name of Moldova National Museum Complex. Also, the building houses the Cultural Heritage Conservation-Restoration Centre, the main branch of the Gheorghe Asachi Iaşi County Library and hosts various exhibitions and other events.

The Palace of Culture is listed in the National Register of Historic Monuments.

History

The construction, started in 1906, was partly built on the old ruins of the mediaeval Royal Court of Moldavia

Moldavia

Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...

 (1434), and partly on top of the foundations of the former neoclassical style

Neoclassical architecture

Neoclassical architecture was an architectural style produced by the neoclassical movement that began in the mid-18th century, manifested both in its details as a reaction against the Rococo style of naturalistic ornament, and in its architectural formulas as an outgrowth of some classicizing...

 palace, dated to the time of Prince Alexandru Moruzi (1806), rebuilt by Prince Mihail Sturdza

Mihail Sturdza

Mihail Sturdza was a prince of Moldavia from 1834 to 1849. A man of liberal education, he established the Mihaileana Academy, a kind of university, in Iaşi. He brought scholars from foreign countries to act as teachers, and gave a very powerful stimulus to the educational development of the...

 and dismantled in 1904. It was from this latter building that the Palace inherited the legend of the 365 rooms, as many as the days within one year.

The Romanian architect I.D. Berindei was assigned to plan the building and he designed it in flamboyant neo-Gothic

Gothic Revival architecture

The Gothic Revival is an architectural movement that began in the 1740s in England...

 style. During World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, the construction halted due to the limitation of resources. The monument was inaugurated on 11 October 1925 by King Ferdinand of Romania.

The Palace has 298 large rooms with a total area of over 36000 m² (43,055.6 sq yd), 92 windows in the front part of the building and another 36 inside the building.

Decoratively, the central hall shows a figurative mosaic including various representations of a gothic bestiary, concentrically arranged: two-headed eagles, dragons, griffons, lions. The hall is superposed by a glass ceiling room, where initially a greenhouse was arranged.

Moldova National Museum Complex

Moldova National Museum Complex of Iaşi hosts four museums located in the Palace of Culture: The Museum of Art, The Museum of History, The Museum of Ethnography, and The Museum of Science and Technology. The Museums also comprise their own stores and libraries, as well as halls for temporary exhibitions.

Art Museum

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

Caravaggio

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

, Paolo Veronese

Paolo Veronese

Paolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...

, Pietro Liberi

Pietro Liberi

Pietro Liberi was an Italian painter of the Baroque era, active mainly in Venice and the Veneto.Liberi was born in Padua, his earliest training was with Alessandro Varotari . He traveled extensively in Italy. During a voyage to Istanbul, he was captured into bondage for 8 months by pirates from...

, Carlo Dolci

Carlo Dolci

Carlo Dolci was an Italian painter of the Baroque period, active mainly in Florence, known for highly finished religious pictures, often repeated in many versions.-Biography:...

, Salvator Rosa

Salvator Rosa

Salvator Rosa was an Italian Baroque painter, poet and printmaker, active in Naples, Rome and Florence. As a painter, he is best known as an "unorthodox and extravagant" and a "perpetual rebel" proto-Romantic.-Early life:...

, Francesco Solimena

Francesco Solimena

Francesco Solimena was a prolific Italian painter of the Baroque era, one of an established family of painters and draughtsmen.-Biography:Francesco Solimena was born in Canale di Serino, near Avellino....

, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

Bartolomé Estéban Murillo

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children...

, Anthony van Dyck

Anthony van Dyck

Sir Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next...

, Jan Both, Bartholomeus van der Helst

Bartholomeus van der Helst

Bartholomeus van der Helst was a Dutch portrait painter.-Biography:Born in Haarlem, the son of a Haarlem innkeeper, Van der Helst moved to Amsterdam some time before 1636, for he was married there in that year...

, Egbert van Heemskerk II, Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin

Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...

, Philippe de Champaigne

Philippe de Champaigne

Philippe de Champaigne was a Flemish-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school.-Early life:Born in Brussels of a poor family, Champaigne was a pupil of the landscape painter Jacques Fouquières...

, Eustache Le Sueur

Eustache Le Sueur

Eustache Le Sueur or Lesueur , one of the founders of the French Academy of Painting, was born in Paris, where he passed his whole life....

, Guillaume Coustou, François Boucher

François Boucher

François Boucher was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture...

, and many others.

Ethnographic Museum of Moldavia

The Ethnographic Museum of Moldavia owns more than 11,000 objects depicting the Romanian advance through the ages. The museum, also, coordinates the Wine and Vineyard Museum in Hârlău

Hârlau

Hârlău is a town in Iaşi County, Moldavia, Romania. the estimated population is 11,271. It was the capital city of Moldova in the 15th century. One village, Pârcovaci, is administered by the town.-Population:...

.

Moldavia's History Museum

The Moldavia's 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

Cucuteni culture

The Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, also known as Cucuteni culture , Trypillian culture or Tripolye culture , is a late Neolithic archaeological culture which flourished between ca...

, Dacia

Dacia

In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...

n, Sarmatian

Sarmatians

The Iron Age Sarmatians were an Iranian people in Classical Antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD....

, Gothic

Goths

The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....

, and Roman

Ancient Rome

Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....

 artifacts, and armory and other items of the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

. Mihail Kogălniceanu

Mihail Kogalniceanu

Mihail Kogălniceanu was a Moldavian-born Romanian liberal statesman, lawyer, historian and publicist; he became Prime Minister of Romania October 11, 1863, after the 1859 union of the Danubian Principalities under Domnitor Alexander John Cuza, and later served as Foreign Minister under Carol I. He...

 Memorial Museum and Museum of the Union, in Iaşi, Al. I. Cuza Memorial Palace in Ruginoasa

Ruginoasa, Iasi

Ruginoasa is a commune in Iaşi County, Romania. It is composed of four villages: Dumbrăviţa, Rediu, Ruginoasa and Vascani.-References:...

 and the Archaeological Reserve of Cucuteni

Cucuteni

Cucuteni is a commune in Iaşi County, Romania, with a population of 1,446 as of 2002. It is located 45 km from the city of Iaşi and 10 km from the town of Târgu Frumos. Neighbouring villages and communes are Todireşti , Târgu Frumos and Cotnari and Ruginoasa...

, are coordinated by Moldavia's History Museum.

Science and Technology Museum

Ştefan Procopiu

Stefan Procopiu

-Biography:Procopiu was born in 1890 in Bârlad, Romania. His father, Emanoil Procopiu, was employed at the Bârlad courthouse. His mother, Ecaterina Tașcă was the daughter of Gheorghe I...

Science and Technology Museum (former The Polytechnical Museum) is home to "Energetics, “Sound Recording and Playback” (unique within Romania), "Telecommunications", "Mineralogy-Cristalography", "Computers" sections as well as "Poni-Cernătescu” Memorial Museum.

External links

• Official site
• 360 inside view
• Information about the Palace