VISUALIZATION OF ETHNICITY IN THE ARCHITECTURAL ENVIRONMENT OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED RUSSIAN CITIES

The article discusses the features of ethnicity visualization in the architectural environment of small and medium-sized Russian cities on the example of the analysis of materials of the All-Russian competition for the best projects for creating a comfortable urban environment in 2018-2021. The competition materials are in the public domain and represent a database that includes both textual and visual justification of projects, their architectural and design solutions. 58 projects were selected for analysis, the concept of which uses ethnicity. The analysis of visualization of ethnicity is carried out on the basis of a functional and semiotic approach: design solutions are considered as an integral information-sign structure, as a narrative that has a beginning, a culmination and an ending. The logic of the analysis of ways to visualize the ethnicity follows the logic of textual and graphic presentation of the thematic blocks of applications. The justification of any concept begins with revealing the identity, including ethnic one, the place and then determining the identity and specific design and architectural solutions designed to visualize the identified ethnic features in a material or figurative form. The basis for ethnic identification of both the place of improvement and its inhabitants is identification with the ethnic history and ethnic composition of the population, with local legends and myths, as well as with the natural, folklore and ethnographic features of the territory and its inhabitants. Depending on how ethnicity is understood, what place and role it is given in the concepts, as well as what elements of ethnicity are used in specific design solutions in textual and graphical form, four groups of projects and, accordingly, four conditional types of ethnicity visualization are identified and considered. The first type uses a complex of several ethnic characteristics that make up an integral complete ethno-cultural image, which is the basis of the whole concept. The second type refers to one or more ethnic characteristics that reinforce the main project-forming idea. In the third type, ethnic characteristics are used most effectively, from the point of view of the authors of the projects, representing the ethno-cultural diversity of the city. Finally, the fourth type uses visual images to a lesser extent, but also refers to ethnic identification through indirect associations with various ethnic and ethno-cultural characteristics.