Western Balkan Endangered Vernacular Architecture

Ottoman period housing compounds of timber structures at several remote villages at the Western Balkan mountain represent the lifestyle of farmers and cattle breeders at the end of the nineteenth century. Once being a part of the same cultural region of Western Outlands within the predominantly Bulgarian populated territory, the region was split in the middle after WWI in the 1920s between Serbia and Bulgaria, cutting community and cultural ties. Once a thriving, vivid rural community, due to the split, and its isolated mountain location, it became detached from major routes and modernisation, and so the region declined to become economically the poorest in EU and with the shortest life expectancy. Timber buildings of high architectural quality in terms of plan typology, links between interior and exterior spaces via verandas, wood carving details of pillars, ceilings, doors and windows remain in several villages, hit by depopulation and aging. They are worth documenting as a part of an elaborate timber building tradition - a unique regional variation of the Late Ottoman period Western Balkan mountain type of house.
1. In a Bulgarian Orthodox church. - photo by Samuel Brookes
2. Wasp Nest. - photo by Boris Rancev
3. Once upon a time…- photo by Aleksander Mladenov
4. With an arched view to the river. – photo by Boris Rancev
5. Lost in the forest again. – photo by Milena Metalkova-Markova