The most accessible material: fragments of wooden architecture samples at "The Birth of Scale" exposition

Models and fragments of wooden architecture samples comprise a significant part of " The Birth of Scale" exposition at the National Centre RUSSIA.

Russian wooden architecture is a unique phenomenon that originated in the Stone Age and remains an important part of our country's cultural heritage to this day.

The exposition features a fragment of a 19th-century peasant hut roof structure from the village of Purnema in the Arkhangelsk region and a full-scale copy of a fragment from the dome of the Church of John the Theologian on the Ishnya River in Rostov the Great, Yaroslavl region.

"The most common type of wooden building was and remains the residential house, based on a klet — a rectangular covered single-room simple log house without extensions (srub or log structure). The klets were small in size — 3x2 metres, had no window openings, and were roofed with straw. An izba is a klet with a stove," explained Dmitry Lesnykh, lead tour guide at the National Centre RUSSIA.

He explained that the most common type of urban and rural house was initially a single-log four-walled izba with an entrance hall and a cold klet for belongings.

Dmitry Lesnykh noted that thanks to our country's geographical location, wood was for many centuries the most accessible material suitable for constructing dwellings, public urban buildings and fortresses. The flowering of Russian wooden architecture occurred from the 15th to 18th centuries, but it remains the pinnacle of traditional architecture to this day.

"The Birth of Scale" exposition also presents models of wooden churches, bell towers and mills built in the 16th-19th centuries.

"The Birth of Scale" exposition at the National Centre RUSSIA showcases completed architectural projects as well as ideas that remain only as concepts. The exposition consists of both the National Centre RUSSIA's own objects and those provided by museums and private collectors across the country.

You can learn more about Russian architecture by watching the series of educational lectures of the National Centre RUSSIA by art historian Yelizaveta Likhacheva.

Partners of "The Birth of Scale" exposition include DOM.RF, the Ministry of Construction of Russia, Gazprom, the State Research Museum of Architecture named after A. V. Shchusev, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, the Yakov Chernikhov Charitable Architectural Foundation, and the HSE Art and Design School.