Hotel Chisinau

Robert Kurtz completed the Hotel Chișinău on Constantin Negruzzi Boulevard in 1959, at the precise moment when the austerity decree had stripped most buildings of their ornament. The result is architecturally inconsistent in ways that are still visible: the polished granite entrance portal, the marble-tiled interior, the columns, crystal lamps, and oversized atrium stairway belong to an earlier moment, while the plain limestone exterior walls belong to a different set of rules entirely. Kurtz appears to have been the only architect who regularly secured approval for this kind of excess. The glass tower sitting on top of the central volume is unexplained in the record: some accounts say it was purely decorative, others that it was intended to house a restaurant or café. It's the oldest functioning hotel in Chisinau and, probably, Moldova.