A History of Russian Architecture

A History of Russian Architecture, the most comprehensive study of this subject to date, surveys the development of Russian architecture, from the masonry churches of tenth century Kievan Rus to the prefabricated built environments of the present. Subject to cultural and stylistic influences from both East and West, Russian architecture nonetheless developed its own distinctive approaches to building, as demonstrated in the four parts of this study: early medieval Rus up to the Mongol invasion in the mid-twelfth century; the revival of architecture in Novgorod and Muscovy from the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries; the cultural revolution of architecture during the reigns of Peter the Great and his successors in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; and the advent of modern architecture, ranging from the colorful eclecticism of the nineteenth century to the rigorous experiments in avant-garde design of the early twentieth century, which were followed by a return to monumental eclecticism in the Soviet period. Analyzing stylistic developments within their historical contexts, this volume serves as a rich cultural history that will be invaluable to scholars and general readers alike.

William Craft Brumfield is professor of Russian studies at Tulane University. He is the author of Lost Russia and The Origins of Modernism in Russian Architecture, among other books, and a member of the Russian Academy of Architecture and Construction Sciences.View the William C. Brumfield Russian Architecture Collection online at http://depts.washington.edu/ceir/brumfield