The Museo de la Revolución consist of the former Presidential Palace and the Granma Memorial in the outdoor area.

In 1909 the councilor General Ernesto Aubort that later became the Governor of Havana, initiated a project to build a new headquarter that would house the Provincial Government (i.e., the office of the Governor of Havana). The magnificence and the privileged location of the building drew the attention of Mariana Seva, the wife of the President, so that she visited the incomplete building in 1917. In 1918, at her recommendation, the President Mario García Menocal (1913-1921) transferred the possession of the imposing building to the presidency to use the building as the Presidential Palace. Even though the building was not completed in some details, it was inaugurated officially in 1920. It remained the Presidential Palace until 1959, serving as the residence of 21 Cuban Presidents from Mario García Menocal to Fulgencio Batista.

When the palace was inaugurated, the ground level was occupied by the offices, the first floor was dedicated to residence of the President and the second floor to the garrison that was responsible for the security of the building. In the period of 1959-1965 the building housed both the government and the Council of Ministers and in 1965, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.  In 1974, it became a museum dedicated to the Cuban Revolution, and the material of the institution, established with the same objective in Castillo de San Salvador de la Punta 15 years ago, moved to the current Museo de la Revolución. In 2010, it was declared National Monument.

Today, the renovated Museo de la Revolución is one of the places that is most visited by the tourists, as well as by the Cuban citizens. Every year more than 300.000 people are visiting this unmissable museum, where about 700 of 9.000 pieces of the collections are exhibited in more than 30 rooms.

The three-storey building was designed by the Cuban architect Rodolfo Maruri and the Belgian architect Paul Belau, and the construction was commissioned to the General Contracting Company at a cost of over 1,5 million Cuban pesos. The interior was decorated by the Tiffany&Co. from New York.

In front of the museum you will see a fragment of the wall that once surrounded the Old City and a SAU-100 tank from that Fidel Castro shot the US vessel Houston that was full of mercenaries, during the invasion of Bay of Pigs in 1961.

The exterior walls of the building are made of stone and the interior walls are made of reinforced concrete. The cupola that crowns the building, is covered with polychrome tiles that make it more outstanding, when the sun shines are reflected on the ceramic. It was a subsequent addition to the original design. The cupola sits on four pendentives that create four nice scallops inside of the building.

The ground floor is dedicated to the contemporary art gallery where you can see a series of portraits of José Martí, reflected from different aspects. All are the work of the Cuban artist Kamyl Bullaudy that is known by having represented Martí in more than 2.500 paintings. The gallery was inaugurated in 2016, at the date of the 121st anniversary of the fall of José Martí in combat in Dos Rios

The ground is covered with Carrera marble. The first floor can be accessed by a Carrera marble stairway that opens into two arms. On its landing there is the bust of José Martí, accompanied by the Cuban flag. The bust is the work of Lilia Jilma Brave Wood, executed in 1952. There are several bullet holes on the marble wall at the landing, remained from the unsuccessful assassination attempt against Batista in March 13, 1957. More than 300 bullet holes were created on the walls of the Presidential Palace during the assault, including the inner courtyard. All the bullet impacts along with the stuck bullets that were covered in haste by order of Batista, were discovered during the restoration process. They are still being studied to understand about what had occurred during the assault.