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Arad spent the better part of three centuries under Habsburg rule, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire left its signature all over the city center before the borders shifted westward in 1920 and Arad became Romanian. Bulevardul Revolutiei, the main boulevard, is lined with Art Nouveau and Secessionist facades built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that draw genuine comparisons to Vienna or Prague, though Arad attracts a fraction of those cities' visitors. The Neuman Palace, the Palace of Culture completed in 1913, and the city hall from 1876 represent three different architectural moments in a single compact downtown.

The city has an older and darker layer beneath the Habsburg veneer.

The Ottoman Empire controlled Arad from 1551 to 1699, using it as a significant garrison and trading post along the Mures River. The Arad Fortress, built by the Habsburgs in the 18th century in the shape of a six-pointed star and now partially accessible, held the 13 Hungarian generals executed here after the failed 1848 revolution, an event commemorated by a large monument and still felt in the Hungarian minority's relationship to the city.