National Museum of Art of Romania

The National Museum of Art of Romania lives in the former Royal Palace on Revolution Square in Bucharest, and the square's name is written into the building. In December 1989, as the Ceaușescu dictatorship fell in days of gunfire, the palace stood in the crossfire. Shells and bullets tore into it, hundreds of works were damaged or destroyed, and the museum closed for about a decade to recover.

Reopened room by room after 2000, it holds two great collections. One is Romanian, medieval church art and icons, some rescued from monasteries the regime had demolished, and the national school of modern painting. The other is European, gathered by the Romanian kings, with a Rembrandt, an El Greco and works by Rubens and Brueghel.

Pockmarks from 1989 are still visible on the outside walls, left as they are, so the building carries its own recent history on its skin.