The National Palace of Culture faces the ruined Old Cathedral across the central plaza and is one of the few grand buildings in the old centre to have survived the 1972 earthquake. Built between 1935 and 1940 during the Somoza era, the neoclassical building originally housed the National Congress; after the earthquake destroyed the rest of the lakefront district, it stood almost alone in a flattened city.
Today it has been restored and houses the National Museum of Nicaragua, the National Library, and temporary cultural exhibitions. The museum has a good collection covering pre-Columbian archaeology, colonial-era artefacts, and the history of the Sandinista revolution. The Rubén Darío library attached to the palace holds a significant collection of the poet's manuscripts. Admission to the museum is modest; the building itself is worth entering simply to see the ornate interior and the murals documenting Nicaraguan history.