Chromatic "zero signs" in the Soviet urban colour design

The research object is the tradition of сhromatic colours displacement from the urban environment. The main goal of the study is to analyse the role, that chromatic “zero signs” played in the environment of Soviet cities and towns, and to reveal their semantics. The findings and key principles of semiotics are used as the main theoretical and methodological research tool. Urban coloristics is seen as a language based on a system of interrelated oppositions, and the non-use of colour in urban space is discussed in the context of the role of “zero signs” in sign systems outside the natural language. The author provides an analysis of the history of the development of urban colourists and, on this basis, justifies the idea of importance for studying and understanding of “zero” colour as a semiotics object the “reflexive symmetry” principle and the usage of an ethnolinguistic strategic line of the analysis as well as a social and cultural one.

The paper reveals the unique additional shades of meaning that the non-use of colour in urban coloristics acquired due to a special socio-cultural situation of the Soviet period. The social structure of Soviet urban society and its change under the influence of urbanization and rural migration are analyzed. We consider the value system of urban residents and analyze its relationship with the social division of urban space. The mechanisms supporting chromophobia in Soviet society are described. The specifics of Soviet urban spaces are discussed in comparison with the cities of the rest of Europe. Based on the analysis of architectural features of constructivism, neoclassicism, and Stalin empire style, different forms of “zero signs” in the space of Soviet cities and towns are identified and characterized.