‘Builders’ mosaic, str. Nicolae Iorga 20, Bălți

A facade mosaic on a Soviet residential block at str. Nicolae Iorga 20, in the central part of Bălți — Moldova's second-largest city and the country's „northern capital”. The panel, worked in black-and-white smalt, shows two builders striking with hammer and chisel above a torch crowned by a wheat sheaf — a Soviet allegory of labour and city-building. It is the same figurative scheme (builder-smiths + sheaf) used on the block at bd. Mihai Eminescu 7: a stock cartoon reused on two different buildings in the city rather than a copy. The block belongs to an unusually dense cluster of late-Soviet facade mosaics on the residential blocks along str. Nicolae Iorga and neighbouring streets in central Bălți. The author and year are not documented. The work survives in situ and was photographed during photobankmd's CC0 documentation campaign.

Track

Northern Moldova

Neighborhood

Bălți

Building

Bloc locativ, str. Nicolae Iorga 20, Bălți

Photos: photobankmd (CC0)