Brief history of MAI Headquarters

1912 – 1915

Even since 1912 the Ministry of the Interior faced the necessity to move in a new headquarters in a new building, as the old one was not large enough. Therefore, the Parliament, the Deputies Assembly and the Senate debated and approved a law according to which the Ministry of Public Domains and Agriculture and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were authorized to pass over some lands to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

On February 9, 1912, the Council of Ministers authorised the Ministry of the Interior to sign a contract with archaeologist Petre Antonescu, by which the latter was assigned to design the building and to conduct the construction of the Palace of the Home Affairs Ministry. At that time, the minister of internal affairs was Alexandru Marghiloman. In 1915, the Ministry of Internal Affairs drew up the tender books for this construction

1938

Although for 20 years the construction of the new building had been postponed, in 1938 Carol II of Romania passed a Law-Decree for authorising the building of the Palace of the Home Affairs Ministry. In the same year, architect Paul Smarandescu – the head of the Architecture Department of the Ministry of the Interior – was assigned to draft the required plans, decisions and tender books, as well as to co-ordinate the technical execution of the construction. To this end, he carried out the necessary documentation at The Air and Marine Ministry Palace in Berlin and at The Security Department in Bratislava.

1939

In 1939, engineer Emil Prager won of the auction organised for the construction of the Palace of Home Affairs Ministry, and in 1941 the Ministry of Public Constructions and Communications signed a preliminary contract on the construction of the building with the “Hochtief-Prager” Company.

At the end of the war, the constructions were restored and in 1950 the building was done.

The Ministry of the Interior used that building as its headquarters until 1958, when the Great National Assembly passes it over to the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party. By 1989 the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party had its headquarters here.

1989 – 2006

In 1989, when the communist regime was replaced by the democratic system, the building became the head office of the Romanian Senate. In 2006 the Ministry of the Interior returned in the Palace especially designed to be its headquarters even from the beginning of the 20th century.