A
horse race track was built in 1905 on the future site of the House of the Free Press. A third of the track was removed in 1950 to make way for a wing of the building, and the race track was finally closed and demolished in 1960, after a decision by
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. Construction began in 1952 and was completed in 1956. The building was named
Combinatul Poligrafic Casa Scînteii "I.V. Stalin" ('The Scînteia Building Poligraphic
Combine [named for]
J.V. Stalin) and later simply
Casa Scînteii (
Scînteia was the name of the
Romanian Communist Party's official newspaper). It was designed by the architect , in the
Stalinist style of
Socialist realism, resembling the main building of the
Moscow State University, and was intended to house all of Bucharest's printing presses, the newsrooms and their staff. It has a foundation with an area of , the total constructed surface is and it has a volume of . Its height is without the television antenna, which measures an additional , bringing the total height to . Between 1952 and 1966, Casa Scînteii was featured on the reverse of the 100
lei banknote. On 21 April 1960, a statue of
Vladimir Lenin, made by Romanian sculptor
Boris Caragea, was placed in front of the building. However, this statue was removed on 3 March 1990, following the
Romanian Revolution of 1989. On 30 May 2016, the Monument of the Anti-Communist Fight ("Wings") was inaugurated in the same place. Renamed ("House of the Free Press"), the building has basically the same role nowadays, with many of today's newspapers having their headquarters in it. The
Bucharest Stock Exchange (
Bursa de Valori București, BVB) was located in the Southern wing at one point. As of 2023, the House of the Free Press is the only building in Bucharest that has kept the
hammer and sickle communist symbol, which appears on
reliefs on its
façade. File:ROL 100 1952 reverse.jpg|Casa Scînteii on the reverse of a 100-lei banknote, 1952 File:Bukarest, Románia. A Szabad Sajtó háza, a volt Scânteia-ház. Fortepan 84528.jpg|Gathering of Romanian
young pioneers at Lenin's statue in front of Casa Scînteii in 1977 File:House of Free Press.jpg|The House of the Free Press and the "Wings" Monument File:House of the Spark (Casa Scânteii) (5723590216).jpg|General view from the Free Press Square File:PMadia 000269 NA NA.jpg|View of building sometime between 1990 and 2016 File:Five-pointed star. And grapes. (6938852169).jpg|Soviet-style five-pointed star on the façade ==See also==