“Grigore T. Popa” University of Medicine and Pharmacy – Nation Square

The old Calimachi Palace, in the centre of the edifice, was bought by Prince Alexandru Calimachi in 1795. Since 1860 it hostes the first university in the country and after 1897 only the Faculty of Medicine remained here, extending the building around the palace in the 1930s. In 1991 the institution received University status and the name of Grigore T. Popa, the famous scholar of the Functional Anatomy School. The building on the right represents the Anatomy Institute, built in 1900 in the shape of a Greek temple. In the Nation Square, in the centre of a Great Romania map made of red paving blocks, there is the Monument of Union, which is a symbol of the Romanian unification in 1918. There is still a superstition that the students who step through the Door of Hope, actually the entrance of the former Princely Court, will successfully pass their exams. (PHOTO : Alexandru DRĂGAN)