ABSTRACT
This article examines the wooden country architecture of the eclectic surroundings of St. Petersburg in the second half of the XIX century in order to identify the sources of borrowing decorative elements and compositional forms, on the basis of which the assumption is made about the presence of three dominant style varieties at the end of the XIX century: “Russian”, “constructive wooden” styles and “chalet style”. The analysis of Russian and foreign sources of that time devoted to wooden architecture, as well as projects of country houses in the vicinity of St. Petersburg, allows us to identify the main prototypes that architects turned to for borrowing details. The first group includes Russian traditional architecture: peasant wooden architecture and stone architecture of the XVII century, the second group includes Western European styles: “chalet style”, “neo-Gothic” of Victorian architecture, and “half-timbered style” of German historicism. The latter had the greatest influence on the wooden architecture of this period.
