Smolensk State University, Smolensk, Russia, vassilidvoinev@yandex.ru
Social changes in the early 1990s not only had a significant impact on Russian society and the country’s economy, but also led to fundamental changes in urban space and urban lifestyle. At the present stage, the urban space of Russian cities is acquiring a commercial character; the processes of suburbanization and segregation, and the privatization of public space are emerging. Such changes draw research interest, focused on a comprehensive knowledge and explanation of current transformation processes in order to establish further prospects for positive urban development and optimal social design of cities. This article presents the methodology and results of the study of social inequality in the urban society, manifested in the architectural appearance of the city of Smolensk. This study was carried out in line with a qualitative methodology; the research strategy of case study was applied. The study appears as a visual semantic analysis of photographic sources obtained in the course of a systematic walk tour of an urban area. The analysis is carried out in line with semantic structuralism, which enables us to explore the city as a special semiotic system or, in other words, text. The analysis was supposed to fix in photographic documents a plan of the meanings of visual images (pictures of residential buildings), which R. Barth refers to as punctum. In the course of the analysis, Ch. Pierce’s typology of the signs was used. As a result of the study, variables (in the typology of Charles Peirce – indices) of social inequality were constructed, which can be observed in the process of visual analysis of photographic materials. In addition, the study made it possible to identify specific indicators of social inequality present in the architecture of residential buildings in Smolensk.
social inequlity, urban space, architecture of residential buildings, semantic structuralism, visual studies
Download textFor citing: Dvoinev V.V. (2021). Socio-cultural space of the post-Soviet city: the manifestation of social inequality in the architecture of Smolensk. Human being: Image and essence. Humanitarian aspects. Moscow: INION RAN. Vol. 1(45): Cultural space: from narrative to semiotics, pp. 85-95. DOI: 10.31249/chel/2021.01.05