Standing moodily over Piata Universitatii is the main building of the University of Bucharest. It was built over a twelve year period from 1857 to 1869 at the behest of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, at the time Prince of Romania. It originally housed three faculties (Law, Humanities and Science), but today houses just the Faculty of Letters and Langauges, as well as the university's administrative departments.
The central corp of the building was entirtely rebuilt in the late 1940s after it was destroyed during heavy allied bombing during 1944. Though rebuilt as an exact replica of the original, many  sculptures and basreliefs by Carol Storck were deemed irreplaceable and lost forever.