Vernacular architecture of the Carpathians

The vernacular architecture of the Carpathians draws on environmental and cultural sources to create unique designs.

In the Carpathian Mountains and the surrounding foothills, wood and clay are the primary traditional building materials.

Firstly, all churches are divided into three parts (the narthex, the nave, and the sanctuary) and include an iconostasis (a wall of icons).

Materials used were those that could be procured locally, including wood (usually oak), mud, straw, fieldstone, lime, and animal dung.

Many peoples in this area plaster their log homes inside and out to keep out moisture, improve insulation, to hide imperfections in construction, and for general aesthetic value.

Sârbi Susani church , one of the Wooden Churches of Maramureş .
Map of building types used in European farmhouses
Kryvka Church (now on display at the Lviv Museum of Folk Architecture and Culture in Lviv, Ukraine) was originally from Sambir Raion , in the ethnographic territory of the Boyko people . Its tripartite, domed design and all-wooden construction are representative of the regional style.
A log cottage from an open-air museum in the Kysuce region of Slovakia. This foothills region is bordered by two Carpathian sub-ranges, the Maple Mountains to the west and the Moravian-Silesian Beskids to the north. Cold snowy winters and a relative abundance of timber combine to inform the use of log wall construction and wooden shakes.
A house with a thatched roof and limewashed plaster walls from the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum in Bucharest , Romania. The use of plaster and straw suggests it is not from the highlands of the Carpathians proper, but a nearby valley or plain.