Cuza Palace in Ruginoasa

The palace that today houses the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Memorial Museum was built in the first decade of the 19th century by the treasurer Săndulache Sturdza, who commissioned the Viennese architect Johan Freiwald to build a luxurious residence on the site of his ancestors’ old boyar house. The initial architectural style was Neoclassical, preserved in the residence’s chapel—this style being prevalent in civil architecture in Moldavia during that era.

In 1847, the chancellor Costache Sturdza “transformed the house in Ruginoasa according to the Gothic style”, hiring architect Johan Brandel for the job. The works were completed in 1855. The building, which still retains the Neo-Gothic features inspired by German Romanticism, is square in shape, with one floor, and each of the four facades has the same elements: wide staircases and balconies supported by stone slabs.

The striking resemblance to the Palace at Miclăușeni, in Iași County, is no coincidence—that one was built by another branch of the Sturdza family.