During the 1973–1980 restorations, an underground office complex (the so-called "bunker") was built under the front square to provide a safe escape for the dictator Augusto Pinochet in case of an attack.

A formal ceremony dating back to the 1850s, it lasts about 30 minutes and includes a band playing, troops with horses parading into the square, and much pomp and circumstance.

Joaquín Toesca had worked on many public buildings in colonial Chile, including the Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral, before he was engaged to design the new royal mint that would become the Palacio de la Moneda.

Works on the building started in 1784, with building materials arriving the following year from around Chile and the world: limestone from the Polpaico country estate; sand from the Maipo River; red stones from a quarry at the Cerro San Cristóbal in Santiago; white stone from the neighbouring Cerro Blanco; oak and cypress wood from Valdivia; Spanish metal works from Vizcaya.

[5] In 1929, an annex was commissioned the then President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo to give the palace a facade to face the Alameda Avenue, the main street of Santiago.

[6] The three-floor annex was built using part of the original construction that was occupied until that date by the mint, which was relocated to a site adjacent to Quinta Normal Park.

The architecture website ARQHYS.com states that the Palacio de la Moneda is “the only structure in the pure Italian neoclassical style that exists in Latin America.” [7] The building has been subject to several modifications throughout the years, made by different presidents.

Designed by Undurraga Devés Arquitectos, the Plaza de la Ciudadanía has been called “one of the most important public works in the last century” by Chile's Plataforma Arquitectura website.