Palace of Culture

Stand at the foot of the steps for a moment and listen. Pigeons shift on the stone ledges above you. Shoes click across the wide square. Then, if you are lucky with the timing, a melody drops from the clock tower. It is not a plain chime. It is a folk tune, one that almost every Romanian knows by heart. Welcome to the Palace of Culture in Iași. This building looks like a cathedral, but it was built to be a courthouse.

Look up at the roofline first. Pointed turrets, steep green roofs, carved pinnacles, tall arched windows. The style is neo-Gothic, a revival of the medieval Gothic look of Western Europe, with its spikes and lace-like stonework. Here it is the decorative late version, with plenty of ornament. The palace rose in the early twentieth century, mostly between 1906 and 1925. It was designed by the Romanian architect Ion Berindey. His brief was grand, and he answered it with towers.

But the ground under your feet matters more than the towers. This hill was the seat of power in Moldavia for centuries. Moldavia was the medieval principality in the northeast of today's Romania, and Iași served as its capital for close to three hundred years. Its princes ruled from a court on this very spot. Fires, wars and invasions damaged that court again and again. Each new ruler rebuilt it, and the old princely residence slowly fell into ruin.

That is the first surprise most visitors miss. The new palace was built directly on top of the old princely court. Parts of the medieval foundations survived underneath. Archaeological work uncovered walls and cellars from the earlier residence. Some of those remains can still be seen around the site. So when you walk into this building, you walk over the floors of the princes who once governed Moldavia. One layer of power sits on another.

The palace was first meant as an administrative palace and a palace of justice. Courts, offices and officials filled its halls. King Ferdinand of Romania attended its inauguration in the 1920s, at a time when the country had just grown much larger after the First World War. The building expressed confidence. A modern state wanted a modern home for its laws. The Gothic look, oddly, was meant to feel solid and timeless.

Here is the second surprise. Behind all that medieval ornament sits very modern engineering. The structure used reinforced concrete, which was still a fairly new technique when work began. The builders combined it with stone facing and decorative detail. In other words, the turrets look like they belong to the fourteenth century, but the bones are twentieth century. The palace also had ventilation and heating systems that were advanced for their day.

The building changed its purpose in the 1950s. The courts moved out, and the palace took the name it carries now, the Palace of Culture. Today it holds the Moldova National Museum Complex. Under one roof you will find several museums. There is a history museum, an ethnographic museum, an art museum and a museum of science and technology. You could easily spend a whole day inside and still miss rooms.

And there are many rooms. The building holds close to three hundred of them. Locals like to repeat a popular tale that there are exactly 365, one for each day of the year. It is a good story, and you will hear it often. The real count is lower, but the feeling behind the legend is fair. The corridors seem to go on and on, and it is easy to lose your bearings.

If you go inside, look for the great Gothic Hall near the entrance. Light falls through high windows onto a mosaic floor. Set into that floor are heraldic animals, the kind of creatures that appear on old coats of arms. You may spot a lion, an eagle and mythical beasts. Many visitors walk straight across without looking down. Stop for a moment and trace the patterns. The floor tells you this building cared about symbols.

Now back to the clock tower, high above the main entrance. On the hour, the clock plays the opening of Hora Unirii, the Round Dance of the Union. This song is tied to the union of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859, the first step toward modern Romania. A hora is a circle dance, where people join hands and move together. For a city that was once a capital, the choice of song carries real pride.

The palace went through a long and careful restoration in recent years. Facades were cleaned, roofs were repaired, and the museum halls were renewed. The work finished in the 2010s, and the building reopened to visitors. That is why the stone looks so pale and fresh today. If you have seen older photographs, you may notice the difference. The grey has lifted, and the carved details are sharp again.

Turn around now and take in the square. In front of the palace stands an equestrian statue of Stephen the Great, the fifteenth century prince who is Moldavia's best-known ruler. He fought many battles and founded many churches. One of his churches is close by, the Princely Church of Saint Nicholas, a small stone building that stands just next to the palace grounds. Its modest size makes a striking contrast with the giant palace behind it.

Before you leave, stand back far enough to see the whole front at once. Notice how the towers step up toward the clock, and how the windows repeat in rows. Listen again to the square: voices, footsteps, perhaps a street musician. Under these flagstones lie the rooms of medieval princes. Above you rises a courthouse dressed as a castle, now full of museums. When the clock next plays its old dance tune, you will know exactly what it means.