Art Nouveau, generic name for the style in the first phase of the modernism, is one of the most captivating subjects in the history of modern culture. Even though it lasted only two decades – the last decade of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century, this phenomenon represented a clear bridge between the old civilisation and the new one. The almost simultaneous occurrence of the new style, which in Belgium and France was named Art Nouveau, in Germany – Jugendstil, in Austria – Secession, etc., demonstrates an extensive phenomenon that comprised all spiritual manifestations. Having rather weak and sporadic economical, political and cultural connections with the Occidental Europe, Basarabia – being, at the time of the affirmation of the concerned movement, an outskirt province of the Russian Empire – went on with the trend of the crossroad between the two centuries. Chisinau, heterogenous and cosmopolitan, having an ample taste for representation, imported and adopted foreign fashions and models, combined these according to their own appreciation, with the desire to distinguish themselves, to display their wellbeing. The Art Nouveau of Chisinau had two forms of manifestation: as an official art – public buildings (the building of former Community of Medical Nurses “Red Cross” of the Harbovat Monastery (today the State Chancellery Polyclinic); the building of Doctor Lazar Tumarkin’s Hydrotherapy Clinic (today Rompetrol SA Company’s office); Psychiatric Hospital Costiujeni, Codru, architect A. Bernardazzi; the building complex of the former Belgian Anonymous Society Tramvai), and as private art – residential buildings. Quantitatively, the number of Art Nouveau residential buildings in Chisinau is impressive – approx. 100. Qualitatively, however, not as much. A great part of the residential houses built at the beginning of the 20th century in Chisinau are lightly influenced by the Art Nouveau style, another part wears a barely noticeable mark of the style. In the majority of cases the facade compositions, usually symmetrical and in one storey, sometimes in two or three storeys, evince a strong historicist leaven, on which some modest elements of the new style engraft. Produced mainly based on a pattern project, the buildings are harmoniously proportionate and clearly express function.