The Cultural Palace was designed in the year 1930 by the Bucharest architect Victor Smigelschi, and its primary purpose was to host ASTRA Cultural Association’s events. Redisegned by Vlad Sebastian Rusu in 2016, the first changes to the original design were to building’s main hall and these were made in the early 1960’s in order for it to accommodate a new function as the city’s cinema. Also from the same period the first floor of the building underwent some minor functional changes to accommodate the History and Ethnography Museum of Blaj and the Town’s Library and Blaj’s Wire Broadcasting Centre.
With the benefit of historical research and with technical expertise it was decided that the spatial and functional design concept of the building, which was now a ruin, would follow the initial project. That decision meant that the alterations that were made in order to accommodate the later institutions had to be removed. The new design follows two directions: firstly, to evoke the recent tragic history of the building and secondly, to create a flexible interior and exterior space that can easily be adapted to the needs of the community that it serves. The main hall becomes a multi-purpose space by removing all the seating and through the addition of more daylight through the new roof lights. Other small reversible changes such as, the metal structure of the roof, the brick cladding and the suspended ceiling reminds the visitor of the recent fire.
