Visual markers of the urban imaginary

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of visual markers of urban imaginary, which provide the accumulation and representation of collective memories of the city, and structure the process of imagination of the city. The relevance of urban imaginary research is confirmed both by the increased scientific interest in the phenomena that symbolically and mentally determine urban reality, and by the episodic nature of urban imaginary research in Russia. Urban imaginary opens the possibility of an interdisciplinary view of the city as a global text, generated by the structuring of collective imagination and formed by the dynamics of urban meanings in time and space. The work focuses on the fact that people come into contact only with fragments of the city, and in the conditions of informatization, digitalization of reality, the city as a whole exists, first of all, in the imagination of people, which approximates and reduces the symbolic code of the city. The key thesis of the work is the statement that the most important symbolic representative, thanks to which urban imaginary is structured in a particular city, is visual markers of the urban imaginary, which have an exceptional imaginative and generating effect. The author addresses the process of urban imaginary construction, reveals the typology and specificity of Russian cities visual markers that act as symbolic mediators. The dominant markers considered in the article are natural, symbolic, architectural, personalized visual markers, which may have different configuration in each city and differently structure urban imaginary. The result of urban imaginary’s visualization process, which translates collective representations of the city, is an urban image. Based on the symbolic and partly virtual nature of urban imaginary, it is emphasized that the process of representation of the city and the constructed image today have more significance than the city really is. The results can be a starting point for the further urban imaginary research, including applied research. They are part of the intellectual capital that can be used by urban elites in the symbolic struggle of cities for space and mobile resources, as well as in solving the problems of increasing the competitiveness of Russian cities.