In Memory of Architect David Palatnik

On 1 November 1998, architect David Palatnik would have turned 85. Palatnik is a milestone in the architecture of Moldova. Palatnik is a distinctive school of architectural design. Palatnik is a passing era of architectural erudition and culture.

The architect was born in the city of Balta into the family of a stonemason. In 1932 he graduated from the Odessa Construction Technical School; in 1939, from the Faculty of Architecture of the Odessa Institute of Civil and Municipal Engineering. From 1940 he worked at Dorproekt, where he gained extensive practical design experience. During this period of his activity, the architect’s attention to the use of the architectural heritage and to the creative application of characteristic elements of vernacular architecture became evident. He used local building materials extensively and professionally: stone wall and facing materials, natural wood, and tiles. He made use of local traditions in material processing and the application of color.

Interesting and significant works of this period include the residential buildings on Chișinău’s Railway Station Square (1950), the railway hospital on Columna Street (1954), and School No. 66 on 31 August Street (1947).

In 1955, architect Palatnik began working at the Moldgiprostroy design institute, where he remained for more than 40 years. The architect’s creative capabilities unfolded with particular force after 1957, when the development of housing construction placed standard design at the center of attention of the country’s Union of Architects and design organizations.

During this period, he was entrusted with developing almost the entire range of standard designs: schools, children’s institutions, clubs, and public buildings. Beginning in 1968, the architect devoted considerable attention to creating high-rise buildings erected in monolithic reinforced concrete using sliding and volumetric-repositionable formwork, and became a pioneer in the first experimental buildings of this type, constructed in Chișinău on Izmail Street and Calea Ieșilor Street. Subsequently, a large number of high-rise monolithic reinforced-concrete buildings were constructed according to D. Palatnik’s designs.

The public buildings constructed according to the architect’s designs are also significant: the Writers’ House in Chișinău (1969), the House of Culture in Bălți (1969), the Palace of Culture of the Trade Unions in Chișinău (1971), and so on.

David Palatnik was one of the founders of and a member of the Union of Architects of Moldova from 1940. For a number of years he was elected to the governing bodies of the Union of Architects. The architect Palatnik’s designs and buildings were repeatedly recognized by the Government and awarded medals at the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy of the USSR. His many years of creative and teaching activity, as well as his achievements in the development of Moldova’s architecture, place David Palatnik among the republic’s foremost architects.

D. Palatnik passed away in April 1998. Eternal memory and a humble bow in gratitude for the legacy he left us.