Fashion Center (Casa de Moda)

A full-coverage metallic brise-soleil grid dominates both elements of the Fashion Centre, the fins and horizontal elements creating a dense, uniform texture across the taller office block and the lower flatter volume connected at its base. Victor Zakharov coordinated the design team, working under the Moldgiprostroy Institute and completing the building in 1970. The two volumes are connected through a gallery open to the boulevard, with the ground floor on Constantin Tănase Street set slightly off from the main structure and accented by an overhang. The brise-soleil functions as both a sun protection system and a formal device, giving the building a transparency that shifts with the light and contrasts with the concrete surfaces behind it. The Fashion Centre forms an ensemble with the Publishers' House, both belonging to the Chișinău City Executive Committee and sharing a spatial counterpoint relationship along the boulevard. The building combined two functions that sat at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum: publishing, a direct instrument of state propaganda, and fashion design, which represented a small concession to personal luxury in an otherwise austere consumer environment. In recent years the ground floor has passed through a succession of commercial tenants including a currency exchange, a restaurant, and a pharmacy, each adding signage that has progressively obscured the original character of the facade at street level.