Features of the Transformation of Urban Public Spaces Based on Their Socio-Cultural Potential

Abstract

Changes in the structure of public spaces of cities are conditioned by spatial-planning, environmental, social factors and often in post-Soviet cities have spontaneous and a little controllable character. At the same time, the set methodology of urban planning cannot provide an effective tool for environment formation, fully complied with new social needs, which makes the development of principles and technologies of the transformation of environment relevant, which is capable of evolution and self-development. The particularity of construction of public spaces of the Soviet city and the features of their social and spatial transformation in the post-Soviet period are considered. Urban public spaces, being in the process of development in space and changing in time, are characterized by the properties of incompleteness and enrichment of their environment with elements of time. On this basis, the typology of public spaces is considered on the example of the territories of the Krasnoarmeysky district of Volgograd as the main semantic structure-forming elements and socially significant dominants of the city, the types of spaces are defined according to the degree of completion of the formation: emerging, habitable, stable, subject to reconstruction and possible directions of their transformation are proposed. The conclusion about the need of preservation of the specific spaces of the city, containing outstanding historical elements, and their transformation based on the principle of historical continuity, built on the combination of historical objects and new components of the environment is made.