Central Bank of Moldova (former State Bank Building)

Located on the corner of Grigore Vieri Boulevard and Constantin Tănase Street, the National Bank building was designed by A. Vaysbein, S. Shoikhet, and G. Kalyuzhner and constructed between 1972 and 1973. The composition consists of two elements: a nine-storey office tower and a lower horizontal volume housing the entry hall, connected by a gallery open to the boulevard. The ground floor along Constantin Tănase Street is slightly recessed from the main volume and emphasised by an overhang. The tower's most distinctive feature is its full-facade brise-soleil, a dense grid of horizontal fins and vertical elements covering the entire surface, used as a functional response to Moldova's summer heat and an expressive architectural device. It’s one of my favorite features of Soviet modernist architecture. Similar treatments appear on the House of Technology and the House of the Press, both in Chișinău. The building's pared-down volumetric clarity and textural facade place it among the more accomplished examples of mature Soviet modernism in the city.