The lecture presented on the conference of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences showed interesting facts about the significance of the building and about the past of its maintenance as national monument. According to many opinions the palace of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences is the second most significant public building of Hungary. The first neo-Renaissance building of Budapest was erected in the style of Historicism, which tendency has decisively defined the townscape up to this time (Fisherman's Bastion, Buda Castle). Historicism appeared in Hungary at the beginning of the 1860s following Neo-Classicism and parallel with Romantic architecture: at first with neo-Renaissance characteristics, but later the neo-Gothic, neo-Romanesque and neo-Baroque architecture emerged as well. The presentation analysed the sources of the Hungarian laws about monument preservation, the functions of the building as monument. The palace has a significant role also as historical place and artistic relic. The lecture also presented the spatial arrangement of the building, its rich fine arts collection, its defining stylistic characteristics, and the process of restoration after the damages in World War II.