Soviet Architectural Heritage in Formation of the City Image: the Case of Constructivism in Yekaterinburg

This research paper examines how the soviet heritage can be involved in the formation of the city image in the case of the constructivism architecture style in Yekaterinburg. The aim of the research is to find out the ways of integration of space in the architectural style constructivism in the process of creating the image of the city of Yekaterinburg. The chosen method is content analysis of social media and Instagram publications. The study examined the emergence of the architectural style of constructivism, its distribution in Russia, the Urals and Yekaterinburg. The processes of transformation of the Soviet utopia in the architecture of constructivism in Yekaterinburg and in the practice of everyday life during the USSR and in modern times were revealed. In addition, the process of constructing the image of the city was considered on the example of such competing cities of Yekaterinburg, as Kazan and Nizhny Novgorod, and cases of successful urban branding of Tel Aviv and Helskinki. Finally, in the course of qualitative and quantitative content analysis, it was possible to identify how the constructivist constructions of Yekaterinburg are covered in the media and to make sure that constructivism is an important element of the city’s image, in particular, it was possible to identify the most popular constructivism constructions. The structure of the paper includes introduction, literature review, methodology, data analysis and main conclusions. Key words: constructivism in architecture, city image, city branding