One of most authoritative scholars of Russian architecture and architectural history William Craft Brumfield is also well known for his photography, particularly of Russian wooden architecture and vernacular building traditions.
His latest photography focused book of wooden Russian buildings is From Forest To Steppe: The Russian Art of Building in Wood and was published in July 2025 by Duke University Press. The book is divided into two sections. Part 1 first illustrates the relation of major buildings to vernacular tradition before exploring the many wooden homes major Russian literary figures lived in, and Part 2 is an extensive survey of five Russian regions where wooden buildings are found: the Russian North, the Heartland, the Urals, Siberia, and the Far East. These chapters comprise the majority of the books 400 plus photographs. Here, by way of an introduction to the book, this photo-essay provides a brief snapshot of a few of Brumfield’s many photographs of Russian wooden buildings, overviewing the breadth and depth of timber buildings found across what is the most wooded nation on the planet.
Brumfield is professor of Slavic Studies at Tulane University and has published many books on Russian architecture. An interview with Brumfield, about the book and photography project, can be found on Duke UP’s website here, and his Wikipedia entry here. The photos below are all from Part 2 of the book, with the majority from the first chapter about the Russian North.
The Russian North: Toward the White Sea
Umba – standard Soviet-era log houses, Morskaya Street. House on the left has numbered logs, indicating it was disassembled and moved from another location, a typical practice for centuries in Russia.
Zelenorbsky – House of Culture, an example of log construction applied in Soviet-era community buildings.
Ankhimovo (original location). Church of the intercession of the Virgin, northwest view. Built in 1708, the church was destroyed by fire in 1963. In 2007 this replica was completed at a park on the Neva River to the south east of St Petersburg.R
Church of Elijah the Prophet, at Tsypinsky Pogost. Interior, view east after restoration with darker wood indicating original elements
Semyonskovo A.I. Popova house. Originally built in Vnukovo (Totma region) at the end of the nineteenth century
Ostrovskaya – House of the Lions, with the owner and sole remaining resident, Marfa Martynova, seventy two in the summer 2009, when the picture was taken.
Zaostrovye (Arkangelsk) Church of the Purification (Dormition) Built near Rikasovo village in 1683, this idiosyncratic structure underwent modifications through the centuries, but its distinctive crown remained.
Izhma (Primorsky region) View across the Izhma River towards the west façades of the Church of the Transfguration (1679) and the Church of the Resurrection (1887). The latter church was used as the village store.
The Heartland Peski (Moscow region) Church of the Purification, east view. Originally built in 1774-76 at the village of Sereda, this monument is one of the most impressive surviving examples of a tiered church, its tower consisting of stacked octagonal tiers.
Suzdal. Windmill with rotating cap from Moshok village. Tentatively dated to the turn of the nineteenth century.
Crossing the Urals Slobodskoy. Church of Archangel Michael, originally built in 1610 at the Epiphany (later Elevation of the Cross) Monastery with the participation of Saint Trifon of Vyatka. Modified in the nineteenth century, restored in 1957
Solilamsk Ryazantsev Salt Works, salt bin. Background: Resurrection brine pumping tower. Local salt magnates endowed brine pumping towers with religious names, perhaps with hopes of perpetuating the flow of white gold.
Into Siberia Tyumen. House, Turgenev Street 57. An example of a massive double-glazed windows with neo-baroque pediments typical of the prosperous Tyumen at the turn of the twentieth century.
The Far East Gusinoozersk. Tamchinsk Datsan. Dugan Ayusha temple, early twentieth century
Yakutsk. Yakutsk Fort (ostrog), original late seventeenth century tower with attached upper chapel. Three months after Brumfield photographed it in May 2002 the unique historic monument burned down.
