Amateur Iranian photographer Mohammad Reza Domiri Ganji, 23 likes to learn as much as he can about a site before he photographs it. Then he utilizes a variety of wide-angle and fisheye lenses, as well as occasional panoramic techniques to create beautiful new, often mind-bending images. He usually shoots the architectural wonders of Iran, and hopes that the Iranian government will allow him to travel further from home in pursuit of other iconic architectural treasures. Photo: The Nasir al-mulk or “Pink” mosque in Shiraz, Iran. (Photo by Mohammad Reza Domiri Ganj)

A visitor walks inside the initiation well at Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra October 6, 2014. Sintra became the first centre of European Romantic architecture in the 19th century, which influenced the development of landscape architecture throughout Europe. It was classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1995. Its monuments are visited by more than 1.5 million of tourists every year, according to local media. (Photo by Rafael Marchante/Reuters)

The Eastern City Gate apartment buildings complex stands in the Konjarnik neighbourhood in Belgrade, Serbia, July 30, 2019. Brutalism, an architectural style popular in the 1950s and 1960s, based on crude, block-like forms cast from concrete was popular throughout the eastern bloc. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

Brick-carving featuring Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) maids performing musical instruments is seen at the Chinese Music History Museum in Xian University of Architecture and Technology on September 27, 2008 in Xian of Shaanxi Province, China. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

A man and a woman jump over a bonfire during Ivan Kupala Day celebrations held by the Belarusian State Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Lifestyle in the village of Ozertso near Minsk, Belarus on July 4, 2020. Ivan Kupala Day, also known as Ivana-Kupala or Kupala Night, is a traditional pagan holiday celebrated in eastern Slavic cultures. Various rituals are traditionally performed on Kupala Night, including making flower wreaths, fortune-telling, jumping over bonfires, and burning a wheel-like effigy symbolizing the sun. (Photo by Natalia Fedosenko/TASS)

While communism, collectivism, worms, dry rot and casual looting failed to destroy the majestic wooden churches of Russia, it may be ordinary neglect that finally does them in. Dwindled now to several hundred remaining examples, these glories of vernacular architecture lie scattered amid the vastness of the world’s largest country. Just over a decade ago, Richard Davies, a British architectural photographer, struck out on a mission to record the fragile and poetic structures. Austerely beautiful and haunting, “Wooden Churches: Traveling in the Russian North” (White Sea Publishing; $132) is the result. Covering thousands of miles, Mr. Davies described how he and the writer Matilda Moreton tracked down the survivors from among the thousands of onion-domed structures built after Prince Vladimir converted to Christianity in 988.

Members of the general public enjoy the “BEACH” at the National Building Museum August 25, 2015 in Washington, DC. The “BEACH” is an interactive architectural installation, with an “ocean” of nearly one million recyclable translucent plastic balls, that brings the experience of going to the beach indoor. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Alejandro Burdisio is an illustrator from Cordoba, Argentina who worked as an architectural illustrator in Argentina and abroad for over twenty years. Several years ago, he began to dabble in humor and cartoons. While still working as a draftsman, he developed an interest in fantasy art and started working with various publishers, video game makers and international newspapers. He has had his work published in the journal "The Murciélaga" and in 2010 published his first book of humor, "Burda World". Burdisio provides illustration workshops and seminars at the Faculty of Architecture at the National University of Córdoba, in Argentina and participates in many artistic events.