National Military Circle

After you finish the Revolution Square Tour, take a five-minute walk. Get off at Calea Victoriei, towards the CEC Palace. On your left, you can see Casa Capsa and, on your right, the National Military Circle rises imposingly.

The building that you see today rises on the site of the former Sarindar monastery, commemorated today by the fountain that can be found in front of the building. The monastery was built on swampy ground. This was the reason for its demolition and the reason why the construction of the palace was a problem. Elie Radu and Anghel Saligny, the two famous architects, used oak pillars to pierce the swampy ground, a technique that is also very popular in Venice. Those oak pillars were the base for the building's foundation.

As an institution, the National Military Circle appears in the middle of the 19th century, but the building that you can see today stands at the beginning of the 20th century. The construction of the Palace began before World War I and was finished only after the end of the war. For the completion of the building, a lot of officers who survived the war would donate money. In 1922 the palace was inaugurated.

In the interwar period, the balls from the National Military Circle became famous. Each mother and each father, who has an unmarried daughter, started to look for a gentleman with a military career. Thus, it is said that when balls took place here, the sidewalk across the street was full of unmarried girls, waiting to be seen by a single officer.

Today the National Military Circle is a cultural institution that belongs to Romanian Army and includes a cinema, a theatre, a library, a concert hall, ballrooms and a restaurant.