The Most Beautiful Buildings in Bucharest

One of Bucharest’s hidden gems, 250-year-old Casa Melik is the city’s oldest house and one of the most beautiful. Built for a local nobleman whose name was lost, it was purchased by an Armenian merchant for the impressive sum of 1,400 thalers, historic documents show. Named after one of its most illustrious owners, author and 1848 revolutionary figure Iacob Melik, it hosts the Theodor Pallady Museum and is decorated with more than 800 paintings and drawings by the Romanian painter.

Completed in 1887, Spitalul Colțea is Bucharest’s first hospital and one of the cornerstones of Romanian history of medicine. Modelled after Ospedale di S. Lazzaro e Mendicanti in Venice, it was built after the original edifice, erected in 1704, was devastated by a fire. Located in the centre of Bucharest, it hosts 17th century Colțea Church with paintings by Gheorghe Tattarescu, and together form undoubtedly one of its most important landmarks.

With its entrance covered by a Art Deco shell shaped glass, this magnificent palace built at the turn of the 10th century by former Romanian prime minister and Bucharest Mayor Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino by famed Romanian arhitect Ioan D. Berindei. Today it hosts the George Enescu Museum, dedicated to one of the country’s most remarkable classical music composers.

This stunning edifice located on the edge of Cișmigiu Gardens was built in the French Renaissance style for Elena Kretzulescu, the Paris-educated heir of two Romanian aristocratic families, by Romanian architect Petre Antonescu. A lover of plants and flowers, she had a greenhouse built in the right hand wing of the palace, as well as a two hectare park.

After lying in a derelict state for decades upon being seized from its owners by the Communist regime, this four star hotel was recently brought back to its former glorious self. Located near the city’s oldest public park, the Cișmigiu Gardens, it is also home to a pub serving great traditional Romanian food, Berăria Gambrinus.

Built for Romanian sculptor Frederic Stock and Cecilia, his trailblazer of a wife – the first woman in Europe to teach art in a public art academy –, the house contains the artistic legacy of a major family of creators. Immerse yourself in this enchanted space, where walls are covered in stunning frescoes and ceilings are adorned with intricate flower and birds patterns.

With its red brick facade, Bucharest’s former Stock Exchange is a remarkable example of industrial architecture. Built in 1898 by Italian architect Giulio Magni – later Rome’s chief architect – in collaboration with Romanian engineer Anghel Saligny, it miraculously survived the mass demolitions of the ‘80s. After being nearly destroyed by a fire, nature took over almost completely, before the building being rescued and turned into the vibrant cultural hub it is today.