Burchi-Zmeu House, the headquarters of the Municipal Museum "Regina Maria" was built in the first years of the nineteenth century (there is no precise information about the date) on a plot that is believed to have previously been part of the monastery complex of Zlataust church. As the name suggests, it belonged to Ilie Burchi, vornic, nicknamed "the Dragon".
Historian Sorin Iftimi states that, most likely, this house was built after the fire of July 20, 1827, which destroyed a third of the city. It is said that the fire started from another house of the vornic Burchi, located in the area of today's Arcu street, from the kitchen "where vutce and sherbets were prepared for the next day, being St. Ilie". The Royal Court was then burned with the entire archive of the Treasury and the Divan, and the unfortunate event totally changed the urban aspect of the city. Following this catastrophe, Voda Ioan Sturdza himself had to move to the houses of Petrache Cazimir (near the current headquarters of the Academy).
In addition to the residential building, the house on Zmeu Street had other functions, at the end of the 19th century it housed the State Archives, and then it was, in turn, the headquarters of the War Orphans Society and, in 1920, of the Gendarmerie, and more then, in 1940, it hosted the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. The original architecture of the building, intended for a house, is a traditional one, being added a little later neoclassical elements. In the period 2013-2015, the building underwent an important restoration, and since 2018 it is the Municipal Museum "Regina Maria" Iasi. It hosts some permanent exhibitions, among which we mention "Iași, city of spirituality", "Iași under Iași" and some temporary ones.
