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.

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.

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 was completed by Koniecpolski's son Aleksander in the style of a baroque residence, imitating those of northern Italy and Genoa.

It was bought from descendants of Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski—Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski and Hieronim Augustyn Lubomirski—by Michał Kazimierz Radziwiłł of the Nieśwież–Ołyka line, whose wife Katarzyna was a sister of King Jan III Sobieski.

He had inherited huge estates from his father and uncle which made him the wealthiest magnate in Poland in the second half of the 18th century, and one of the richest men in Europe.

One of the most impressive feasts given by him was on St. Catherine's Day, 25 November 1789, the 25th anniversary of King Stanisław August's coronation, and commemorating the Union of Lithuania with the Polish Crown.

On the night of 2–3 May 1791, a conspiratorial group of members of the Four-Year Sejm who were bent on saving the Commonwealth met at the palace to strategize means to secure the adoption, next day, of the 3 May Constitution.

The first Viceroy, from 1815, was Józef Zajączek (1752–1820), former aide-de-champ to Hetman Franciszek Ksawery Branicki, deputy to the Four-year Sejm, secretary of the Friends of the Constitution (i.e., of the 3 May Constitution), a division commander during the Polish-Russian War of 1792, hero of the Battle of Zieleńce, a Polish Jacobin, a soldier in Jan Henryk Dąbrowski's legions, a general of Napoleon's.

Aigner had two associates: Camillo Landini, who sculpted the four stone lions guarding the palace courtyard on the Krakowskie Przedmieście side, and Mikołaj Monti, an Italian painter.

Aigner is inseparably linked with the Viceregal (Polish: Namiestnikowski)—today, Presidential—Palace as the creator of its classicist exterior, which survives unchanged to this day.

In 1879, in the palace's colonnade hall, the inhabitants of Warsaw for the first time saw "The Battle of Grunwald", a historical painting by Jan Matejko.

At the turn of the 20th century, the Tarnowski Palace to the right (south) of the building was pulled down, and in 1899-1901 the luxurious Hotel Bristol was built in its place, designed by Władysław Marconi.

One of the shareholders in the consortium that built the hotel was the famous pianist and post-World War I Polish prime minister, Ignacy Paderewski.