И. А. Курбасова Е. И. Силантьева

Buildings in Timber
(1) From time immemorial¹ man has applied wood for building homes, particularly at places where trees grew in abundance. Wood being easily subjected to fire, wooden buildings of great architectural interest became rare nowa­days.

(2) One of the main features of wood is its property of insulation against cold. Sub-zero temperatures being common in Russia, wood was used there for houses as well as for churches. Up to now in our country there exist many remark­able achitectural monuments which are entirely built of wood, the ancient Russian churches being of particular interest in this respect. The onion-shaped domes they are decorated with are worth looking at.

(3) Another remarkable example of the old timberwork which is still to be seen in London is Westminster Hall. Being erected at the end of the 14th century, the building covers an area of nearly half an acre (about 2,000 m²). That the erection of Westminster Hall involved great man­power is quite obvious for at that time only manual labour was made use of in construction work.