Prague - The very first comprehensive work on European wooden sacred architecture is the two-volume publication Wooden Churches and Bell Towers in Europe by authors Jiří Langer and Karel Kuča. The work, accompanied by over 2500 photographs and drawings, is the result of extensive research in an area ranging from Great Britain to Russia and from Norway to Romania. It was recently published by Paseka. The first volume deals with log and half-timbered churches. From their rich European collection, the authors describe or mention about 2000. They pay attention not only to the architecture but also to its artistic decoration. They devote equal attention to Western Christian architecture, emphasizing the consequences of the Reformation, as well as Eastern Christian architecture. They have also not forgotten wooden synagogues and mosques. The second volume is dedicated to more than 3000 bell towers, also wooden and half-timbered, but selectively including some brick and stone structures. Bell towers are characteristic of both Western Christian and Eastern Christian parts of Europe and are one of the elements of a shared European cultural identity. Historian and ethnologist Langer (1936) worked in museums and galleries in Slovakia and in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm, founded and developed open-air museums, is active in the Association of European Open-Air Museums, and has been the editor-in-chief of the journal Ethnologia Europae Centralis since 1996. He founded and developed the Orava Gallery, is the author of many exhibitions and catalogs, and numerous academic publications. Together with Kuča, he published the work European Open-Air Museums. Architect Kuča (1961) worked in heritage institutes in Brno and České Budějovice, and has been working as an architect and urban planner since 1991, primarily as a historian in these fields. He is the author of numerous publications in the history of urbanism and architecture and has published dozens of professional studies and articles. He participated in grant research projects Atlas of Folk Architecture and Rural Churches in Bohemia. He is also a lecturer on the regional content of the entire series of tourist maps of the Czech Tourist Club.
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