What should the Palace of Culture in Ungheni look like from the outside once it comes out of renovation? This time the answer is not left to architects and officials alone, but to the people of Ungheni themselves: the City Hall has opened a public vote in which anyone can choose between two exterior options. Voting closes on Wednesday, 1 July, at 8.00.
“How would you like the Palace of Culture in Ungheni to look on the outside? Let’s choose the most suitable option together,” the City Hall writes in the announcement published on 29 June. The choice is made through an online form, in which one of the two options is ticked.
Two options, the same building
The difference between the two proposals is, above all, one of colour and of visual “temperature”.
Option 1 relies on light tones — cream and white, light grey and natural-wood inserts — for a warm, bright look that makes the building seem lower and friendlier.
Option 2 keeps the white and the wood but introduces a strong anthracite grey, which cuts the façade into contrasting registers and gives a more sober, urban feel.
Both keep the same architecture and the same “Palatul de Cultură Ungheni” lettering over the main entrance — only the finish and the palette change. In the comments under the post, hundreds of reactions show a divided community: some see in the light option “a warm soul”, others prefer the more modern contrast of the anthracite one, and a few say, pragmatically, that what matters most is for the renovation to be seen through to the end and with quality materials.
Why the renovation is happening now
The vote is not an isolated image exercise. The Palace of Culture is undergoing a modernisation that includes energy-efficiency works — interventions on the building’s envelope meant to cut heat losses and the running costs of the largest cultural institution in the municipality.
The works are carried out within the project “Gates for the sustainable integration of Middle Prut Valley culture into European tourist routes” (code ROMD00219), which Ungheni City Hall implements in partnership with Iași City Hall. Funding comes through the Interreg VI-A NEXT Romania–Republic of Moldova 2021–2027 Programme — the same cross-border framework through which the two banks of the Prut increasingly link projects in culture, tourism and infrastructure.
The city’s cultural heart, mid-change
For Ungheni, the Palace of Culture is no ordinary building. This is where the shows, festivals and workshops that bring the community together are held, and the institution is going through a period of realignment, including after a change in artistic leadership — the new artistic director, Edgar Bunea, recently spoke of a “cultural revolution” and of bringing audiences back into the hall.
In this context, the vote on the façade gains an extra meaning: not just how a building looks, but how much people feel the institution belongs to them. A renovation decided “from above” and a renovation the community has put its signature on — even if only by choosing the colour — are two different things.
How to vote
Voting is open to all and takes place online, through the form announced by the City Hall, until Wednesday, 1 July, 8.00. The two options can be compared directly in the renderings published by the City Hall, and the form asks you to tick one of them.
Information on the public vote, the deadline and the framework of the modernisation project comes from the official announcement of Ungheni City Hall, published on its Facebook page on 29 June 2026. The renderings of the two façade options belong to Ungheni City Hall.