It is a former palace of the City Hall built in 1902. Until the early 20th century a Gothic inn of Russian merchants stood on this site.

The Philharmonic Society (Aušros Vartų str.5, Vilnius) is one of the most magnificent Historicist buildings in Vilnius. From 1904 it housed a Lithuanian bookshop. In 1905 the Great Seimas of Vilnius that demanded autonomy for Lithuania took place in this building.

In the vestibule – a sculpture of Jonas Basanavičius reading the 1918 Act of Independence. On the sidewalk by the door – a memorial plaque commemorating the same event.

In the times of Soviet occupation there was a tendency to emphasize the fact that in 1918 local communists and other leftist parties proclaimed a short-lived Soviet Lithuanian Republic in the City Hall.

Later the palace housed an assembly hall, theatre and cinema hall, and in 1940 the Philharmonic Society was established there. Fedor Shalyapin, and after 1945 many world-famous soloists and ensembles performed on tour in this hall.