On either side of the main hall is the breathtaking Salón de Pasos Perdidos (Hall of Lost Steps). It is named for its acoustic properties; its arched ceiling is so high that it muffles any echo from footsteps. The hall has an impressive size: it is 120 meters long and 14,5 meters wide. This eclectic style hall (in fact two halls, divided by the main hall) that has been designed for big receptions, has been adorned by 32 gilded, bronze candelabras with nice bulbs, cast in France, 25 benches, made of Italian marble, and inlaid bright marble floors from Italy. Here in this hall and throughout the building, a range of different lamps can be seen. These are designed specifically for El Capitolio by Cuban designers, but the majority of them were manufactured in France. The walls, the doors, the windows and the gold-plated barrel vault ceiling are well-proportioned, and symmetry is dominating at every detail.

The Salón de Pasos Perdidos leads to two semicircular constructions, consisting of halls and galleries. In fact, Capitolio was designed as a bicamaral structure, but it is more of a monolith with rounded ends. The south wing formerly housed the Senate, and the north wing the House of the Representatives and the President’s Office. The doors between the wings and the Hall of Lost Steps are crowned with the large bronze coats of arms of Cuba.

At the north side of the Salón de Pasos Perdidos the flamboyant door with ocher marble columns at each side gives access to a hallway. From there one can access the President’s Office, the hall of the House of Representatives, the elevators all on the left or the Sala de Baraguá on the right.

The neoclassical Sala de Baraguá was originally intended as the workplace for the secretaries of the House of Representatives. The workmanship of the bronze elevator doors stands out. The President’s Office is adjacent to the hall of the House of Representatives and has a door opening directly behind the dais in the hall. At the right side of the dais you can see the current flag of Cuba and the replica of the flag that the Major General Máximo Gómez used during the Ten Years War. The hall has an amphitheater design, composed of 132 ornated mahogany chairs upholstered with maroon leather. The hall can be accessed by eight bright entrances easily. It has also an upper floor for the audience. The walls are ornamented with wooden human relief panels. The ground is paved by colored marble.

There are three rooms more in the north wing that are renovated and opened to visitors. They all are at the back of the building. The first one is the luxuriously decorated Sala de Bolívar that occupies the rear corner of the building. The original furniture and the Venetian mirrors are good preserved, reproducing the refined atmosphere of France at the time of Napoleon Bonaparte. The second one is the Sala de Jimaguayú, dedicated to Angelo Zanelli. The visitor can see the molds that the artist used to create the bronze statues of the building and receive information about the process on the monitor in the room. The original plasters that had been stored in boxes in the Garibaldi Museum in Rome, were donated by the artist’s family to Cuba as loan. The third one is the Sala de Yara, where beautiful pieces of the original tableware are conserved. The porcelain plates, crystal glasses, silver cutleries etc. are good preserved. The Yara and the Jimaguayú rooms were intended for the meetings of the Minority and Majority committees of the House of the Representatives.

The area behind the Statue of the Republic that separates the north and south wings, is occupied by the José Martí Library that was previously reserved for the congressmen. Thereafter, it served as the National Library of Science and Technology. A large part of the original furniture is good preserved.  The room in Italian Renaissance design, is overlaid from floor to the ceiling with mahogany and cedar panels. It is illuminated by four one-ton chandeliers of the Tiffany company.