The building at 1 Alley of Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred — known to Kyivans as the former October Palace, and now the International Center for Culture and Arts — was built in 1842 by architect Vikent Beretti for the Kyiv Institute of Noble Maidens, an educational institution for girls of noble origin. After 1917, with the establishment of Bolshevik power, it became a place of suffering: the basements were turned into NKVD torture chambers, where Maksym Rylsky, Hnat Yura, Volodymyr Sosyura, Andriy Malyshko were tortured. Hryhoriy Kosynka, Maik Johansen, Mykhailo Semenko, Mykhailo Boychukat, his students, and many others were shot on the spot, and their bodies were secretly taken to the Bykivnyansky Forest. Since 1941, the building was occupied by the Gestapo, and after the bombings of 1943, it lay in ruins.
The reconstruction lasted from 1952 to 1958 — and it is symbolic that the same artists who were once tortured here took part in it: Rylsky, Sosyura, Malyshko, Hnat Yura. During the reconstruction, charred bones and secret chambers were found in the basements. On December 24, 1957, the palace opened its doors to visitors — and since then, over forty million people have visited it. Dmytro Hnatyuk, Anatoliy Solovyanenko, Bella Rudenko and others began their creative journey on this stage. Today, the hall accommodates over two thousand spectators and hosts groups from different countries of the world.