Built in Bucharest, following the plans of Petre Antonescu between 1906 and 1910, the Palace of the Ministry for Public Works was realized in a traditional, neo romanian style. The land on which it was built was named at that time “Maidanul lui Duca”, because it was a waste ground on which was organized, occasionally, a fair.
At the inauguration ceremony, in 1910, the National Treasury made a commemorative medal, which had, on one part – the face of king Carol I, and on the other – the silhouette of the building.
The Palace was built asymmetrically, in the form of a square. One of the most interesting things, architecturally speaking, is the front entrance, the anteroom and the stairway of honor. Actually, this is one of the most important monuments of the country, built in the style of the old romanian architecture.
In the 2nd half of the First World War, the building is seized and used as German Headquarters.
