The city as a palimpsest: the phenomenon of “empty places” in the urban environment

Abstract

The article attempts to analyze, within phenomenological optics, the phenomenon of "empty places" in the city, which, in turn, is understood as a specifically organized space of human life. In an interdisciplinary way, at the intersection of theoretical urban studies, memory studies and political philosophy, the relationship between space, place and emptiness in the urban environment, is considered. Based on the concepts of Simmel, Heidegger, Bachelard and others, the author comes to the conclusion that the city is a kind of "palimpsest", the memory of which arises under the influence of not only those elements of the environment that exist in the actual visual experience of everyday life, but also remain only in the format of “ruins” or “spectres”, which at the same time have significant symbolic content in the context of the everyday urban landscape, including the landscape of a post-socialist city.