The Presidential Palace (Polish: Pałac Prezydencki) is the official residence of the Polish head of state and president alongside the Belweder Palace, located in Warsaw, Poland. Originally constructed in 1643 as an aristocratic mansion, it was rebuilt and remodelled several times over the course of its existence by notable architects. The current neoclassical palace was completed in 1818. Throughout its history, the palace was a venue for important historical events in Polish, European, and world history. In 1791, the facility hosted authors and advocates of the Constitution of May 3, 1791, the first modern European constitution. In 1818, the palace began its ongoing career as a governmental structure when it became the seat of the Viceroy (namiestnik) of Congress Poland. Following Poland's resurrection after World War I, in 1918, the building was taken over by the newly reconstituted Polish authorities and became the seat of the Council of Ministers. During World War II, it served as a Deutsches Haus for the country's German occupiers and survived the 1944 Warsaw Uprising intact. After the war, it resumed its function as seat of the Polish Council of Ministers. On 14 May 1955, the Warsaw Pact was signed inside the Presidential Palace between the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc countries. Since July 1994, the palace has been the official seat of the president of the Republic of Poland. History Construction of the present-day Presidential Palace in Warsaw was begun in 1643 by Crown Great Hetman Stanisław Koniecpolski, owner of the town of Brody (80 km. east of Lwów) and of numerous latifundia situated in Poland's eastern borderlands; hence the palace's first name was "Pałac Koniecpolskich"—the "Koniecpolski Palace". It was said that he owned so much landed property that he could cross the breadth of the Commonwealth while spending every night in one of his own manors. The palace was not completed in the Hetman's lifetime, as he died unexpectedly in 1646 at his Brody residence, a few weeks after taking a young wife. The palace's architect was Constantino Tencalla, architect to Poland's King Władysław IV and designer of Sigismund's Column, in front of the nearby Royal Castle, commemorating Sigismund III of Poland. The palace was completed by Koniecpolski's son Aleksander in the style of a baroque residence, imitating those of northern Italy and Genoa. A view of the palace in a Warsaw panorama of 1656 by Erik Dahlberg confirms this. The next