The palace, which housed a large part of the collection, was destroyed in a fire on the night of 2 September 2018. The building had been called a "firetrap" by critics, who argued the fire was predictable and could have been prevented. The fire began in the air-conditioning system of the auditorium on the ground floor. One of the three devices did not have external grounding, there was no individual circuit breaker for each of them, and a wire was without insulation in contact with metal. In the wake of the fire, the ruined edifice was being treated as an archaeological site and undergoing reconstruction efforts, with a metallic roof covering a 5,000 m² area including debris.