Over the last few decades, public spaces have been suffering from a progressive dystrophy. Prevalence of private cars in the absence of a good alternative to public transport and fragmentation of the city in the absence of its proper complex organization do a lot of harm to the city’s image.

Many foreign cities started to value urban public spaces and to revitalize them about forty years ago. Examples of successful cities and various inspiring decisions encourage us to create a city structure as a place where people meet. Each city has an individual approach, but common features of the cities are: aspiration to create a comfort environment for a human being, a strong leader who can realize this idea and sequential and decisive actions to create a humane city for people.

The design of places has a huge impact on the success of urban areas. It has a role in helping develop a vision and identity within the built environment.  Designing public spaces must be centred around the place - its physical characteristics, activities that happen within it, and the emotional reaction of a place. The success of places is governed by the perception of those who use it; we can influence this as designers and continue to create places where people want to live, work, learn and play.

The search for identity of cities looks rather urgent and attracts attention of many researchers. Addressing this issue, the article draws an analogy between a human person and a city. Like a city, a human being needs to comprehend his self-identity in order to resist depressive tendencies. It is shown that a person’s depressive symptoms are similar to those of cities. The city identity necessary to resist depression can be searched for both historically and geographically. The historical aspect consists of local myths and legends about the city and the citizens. The geographical aspect of identity comprises features of the terrain, climate, flora and fauna of the region where the city is located.

Foreign investment by the United Arab Emirates in the 'Beograd na vodi' master plan sets the stage for the largest urban development in the Serbian capital since the planning of Novi Beograd. While the government embraces the plan as an instrument to spur economic growth in Serbia, critics are more cautious and warn for cliche corporate development.

The article considers identity as a system of selfdetermination in the global/local opposition. The ‘identification resource’ inherent in the historical environment is presented as a specific feature of modern territorial entities, architecture, as well as objectivespatial environment to identify them with a certain space or place. The means of cultural formation and translation of the identity resource are set up through the concept of the ‘transmutation contact’, which captures the essence of the processes of new creation and formation. Nomadism as another pole of the global/local opposition and a new interpretation of the space of sedentism assigns new ideals of development and forms of identification. Discourses of self-determination as a part of the global/local space are proposed to be interpreted as a key tendency in the development strategies of the region and the design culture.

In the article the concepts of city and urban way of life are critically reexamined in the wake of megapolitan crisis and global communications. The concept of city is still and ignoring rediscovery of alienation and meaning of identity limits in consuming oriented society. In 21 century understanding of urban and planetary phenomena should be reassessed and the fundamental limits of telluric destiny of the humankind rediscovered as a next step in architectural approach to survival of mankind. There are some special points emphasizing situationist approach to urban and architectural theory.

More than half of our built environment in Germany is created in the period after 1945, including the technical infrastructures. For the built heritage of the postwar era - the majority is in use - there is important need for renovation and modernization. To transfer the architecture and urban ensembles of this time into the present and make them fit for a sustainable future, is a task of considerable scope and with complex requirements. 60 years after the war destruction of the Second World War and after the origin of the so-called Second Modernism, it is time to evaluate beyond resentment and euphoria with the tasks that is currently arising in the practice of urban development. The following article shows three projects of urban planning in Dresden, the challenges and requirements, but also what opportunities may be offered by responsible transformation of districts from Post-war modernism era.

This article is about activity of Valery Kondakov, Siberian artist and writer, who lives on the shore of Lake Baikal. In search for his own identity he uses the Neo-Archaic style, while emphasizing the importance of ethno-cultural heritage. However, the regional/territorial identity and freedom are more important for the artist than simple ethnicity.

The article reveals a complex and multicomponent identity of a Siberian city. Special attention is paid to the history of foundation of Siberian cities and ethnic identity of citizens. Like other forms of identity, ethnicity remains in the city space, while acquiring new forms of presentation, especially in the capitals of Siberian republics. Though there are regional features, referring to which we can speak about common features of formation of Siberian cities, there are no Siberian cities with similar image and history.

The authors and participants of the project and the expert community analyze the problems related to the realization of a big-scale concept of renovation of the historical center “Irkutsk Quarters”. They discuss
preservation of wooden architecture of the city, changes in social functions of the territory, inclusion of the new facilities in the fabric of the area, as well as the problems of the territory’s tourist function and preservation of the identity of Irkutsk downtown.

The article reviews the monography “Design today: from the virtual space to the objective and environmental reality. Design school in Irkutsk” written by O. Zheleznyak and her co-authors. The researchers focus on the urgent problem of the contemporary design concerning the interrelation between the virtual space and the objective and environmental reality. Design is interpreted as a system of identification of the region and branding of the city through discussion of the peculiarities of the image of the territory and regional trends in design. The same technique is used for featuring the image design in the virtual and material space. The monography provides the examples of scientific and design works elaborated by the Design Department of Irkutsk National Research Technical University.

The article discusses designing of entertainment and theatre buildings, including theatre auditoriums with low occupant load, and peculiarities of the present-day cultural policy. It considers the possibilities for designing public buildings on the basis of social and cultural modeling and with the help of the system of cultural and welfare facilities. The use of wooden architecture is analyzed through the example of the 130 Quarter in Irkutsk.

The spring started with two popular architectural events in Siberia: in the beginning of March the youth Archbukhta was held in Irkutsk (8), and at the end of the same month the Archigesh was organized for mountain skiers in Novokuznetsk (12). After determination of the winners, our attention was focused on the city environment, the most trending topic of the season. Spring is the best season to take care of the city environment in general and of urban improvement in particular, because the snow melts to uncover all drawbacks of the surface relief. At the same time, contractors wake up from hibernation and are ready to manage the allocated funds. Citizens choose (now by themselves!) the public spaces to be financed by those funds.

And so, the interior of the city. In April small towns and historic settlements of our big country prepared submissions to the city environment competition opened by the Ministry of Construction. At the end of May, already under the new Minister of Construction, the results of the competition were announced (40). The winners were congratulated by the Prime-Minister. The rest of the participants cannot but hope that this useful competition will be held annually. The criteria included identity: its recognizing, preservation and even creation. Already in June, Irkutsk architects, urbanists, historians and sociologists discussed the same (their favourite) topic at the Project Baikal Discussion Club Meeting held at a new place, “Boiling Point” (88).

The object of the issue is Zaryadye in Moscow, a brand-new urban interior of the capital (131).

The processes of globalization that lead to loss of national and cultural peculiarities of big cities arouse a keen interest toward the idea of identity. Opposite tendencies develop as a reaction to globalization, including increase of national consciousness that implies a high interest toward national history, traditions and religion. The philosopher E. H. Erikson defined identity as continuous internal equality with oneself. This definition suits urban studies best of all.

The article presents a record of a round-table discussion held as part of the Festival “Zodchestvo of Eastern Siberia 2014”. The problem of identity of Siberian cities was discussed by the leading architects of Russia, urban specialists, historians, ethngraphers, cultural specialists, etc. Different debatable opinions on the past, present and future of Siberian cities were advanced during the discussion.

The use of provincial design as a special form of manifestation of peculiarity of the “place” is determined by its relevancy for today’s world culture and common development tendencies of the Siberian region. The Provincial Design Project worked out by the Department of Design of Irkutsk National Research Technical University reflects the peculiarities of the art and design space of the region, corresponds to the current context and challenges of the profession and may serve as specific means of the territorial image formation.

The discussion focuses on the peculiarities of non-metropolitan cities that attract their citizens. Different alternatives of formation of urban identity and uniqueness are proposed. The proposals for the creation of urban identity in Irkutsk are analyzed. The discussion features the connection between the historical development of
the city and its present-day problems: development of the Angara waterfront; preservation of wooden architecture and V. Pavlov’s architectural heritage. It brings up an issue of distinctness of city mythology.

The article presents the materials and the key conclusions of the research and practice excursion around the three German cities (Berlin, Dresden and Halle) visited by professors and students of the Architectural Faculty of INRTU Institute of Architecture and Construction in 2016. The excursion was financially supported by the Volkswagen Foundation to analyze and summarize the successful German practices in realizing the complex programs on renovation of the territory of mass panel house-building of the 1960-1980s.

The article analyzes the content and the results of the City Community Forum in Irkutsk. It describes the theoretical approaches to the activity of city communities, their principles, success factors and quality characteristics of the basic measures for promotion of city identity.

Including: Speech by the Expert Mark Meerovich, speech by the Expert Elena Grigoryeva