Interior Ministry Palace

The Interior Ministry Palace is a building on Revolution Square in Bucharest, Romania. It houses the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Parliament approved the building in 1912, as the old ministry headquarters had become cramped. In 1938, King Carol II ordered work to begin. Architect Paul Smărăndescu drew up plans based on the Detlev-Rohwedder-Haus in Berlin and the state security building in Bratislava. Emil Prager became head engineer in 1939. Work was interrupted by World War II but resumed afterwards, being completed in 1950. During the war, it served as a shelter from bombing raids.

The Interior Ministry occupied the building from 1950 until 1958. Between the establishment of a Romanian Communist Party-dominated government in 1945 and the relaxation of repression in 1964, political detainees were held in the cells of the first and second underground floors and interrogated on the upper floors. The first-floor cells were nicknamed garsoniere (“flats”) while the ones below were called submarine (“undersea”). Each cell had a concrete bunk bed, table, two stools, a light bulb constantly kept on and an iron door. The cells held between two and four detainees. Guards ceaselessly patrolled the corridors.

From 1958 to 1989, it served as the building of the Communist Party's central committee. On August 21, 1968, during the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, Nicolae Ceaușescu made the defining speech of his 24-year rule from the building's balcony, challenging the Soviet Union. On December 22, 1989, shortly after noon, during the Romanian Revolution, a helicopter carrying Ceaușescu and his wife Elena took off from the palace roof, marking the end of his regime. After the revolution, it housed the Senate until 2006. Since that time, it serves as the Interior Ministry building.