The architectural-artistic qualities of Bessarabian Exhibitions held in Chişinău in 1925, 1933 and 1942

Abstract

In the autumn of 1925, the first General Exhibition of Bessarabia and the Fair of Samples took place in Chisinau. Numerous pavilions located in the territory related to the intersection of str. Ion Inculeţ with str. Unirii, as well as the intersection of str. M. Kogălniceanu with str. Prince Carol presented the achievements in the field of agriculture, industry and culture from Bessarabia and other Romanian provinces and countries. The main exhibition portal, the Lupeni Mines Pavilion, the State Monopolies Directorate (R.M.S.) Pavilion, the “Towy Kogan” Pavilion, the Press Pavilion, the French Industry Pavilion, the Czechoslovak Pavilion, the Metallurgical Industry Pavilion, etc. stand out through an original architecture. Eugen Bernardazzi, Moisei Rudi, Edmund Koch, Dorel Slusărescu, Auguste Baillayre, Theodor Kiriakoff and others were trained in the process of designing the pavilions and organizing the event. The specific forms of Art-Nouveau architecture, neo-Romanian, Romanian and European modernist, neoclassical, etc., were exploited. The next exhibition of this kind took place in Chisinau in the same place in 1933. The pavilions and constructions that appeared here in the interwar period were destroyed in the early 1960s, with the exception of the R.M.S. Pavilion. which acquired another destination. In 1942, the Bucharest architects Octav Doicescu and Dimitrie Ghiulamila elabored the project of the next Bessarabia Exhibition, also called the “Disrobing Exhibition”. It was laid out in the city’s Public Garden and included several attractive constructions: The Main Pavilion of the Government of Bessarabia, the Agriculture Pavilion, the National Economy Pavilion, the “Post, Telephone, Telegraph” (P.T.T.) Pavilion, the Viticulture and Winemaking Pavilion, the Propaganda Pavilion, etc. The architects resorted to the plastic arsenal of modernist and neo-Romanian architecture. A sector of the Exhibition was reserved for the Bessarabian Village Museum. By the early 1960s, all pavilions were completely destroyed.