Integrating content analysis into urban research: compatibility with sociotope method and multimodal graph

The content analysis approach is well-established and acknowledged sociological research technique, although it is constantly evolving and its field of application is expanding. The aim of the article is to demonstrate the possibilities to use the content analysis method in urban studies. It includes the analysis of literature and the example of methodology design in the frame of case of the study of modernization of Lithuanian cities during the Soviet period. It can be concluded that the content analysis method is a flexible tool that can be integrated both with sociospatial (sociotope methodology) and spatial (Space Syntax, multimodal graph) research methods and reinforce social dimension in spatial analysis of cities

ORIGINS AND APPLICATION OF POSTMODERN TRENDS IN PRIVATE DWELLING-HOUSES OF LITHUANIA, 1987–1998 / POSTMODERNIZMO STILIAUS TENDENCIJŲ KILMĖ IR PRITAIKYMAS PRIVAČIŲ GYVENAMŲJŲ NAMŲ ARCHITEKTŪROJE LIETUVOJE (NUO 1987 IKI 1998 METŲ)

On 28 September 1987, the resolution No. 264 On Further Development of Individual Housing in the Republic passed by the Central Committee of the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR restored the typological group of private dwelling-houses to Lithuanian towns after a break of nearly three decades. Post-modern trends in architecture that prevailed in western countries at that time reached Lithuania in the form of limited spectrum of architectural press. Architectural expression of individual dwelling-houses in Lithuania relied specifically on projects published in foreign magazines (mostly, of Japan, the U.S.A and Western Europe), and later – in the local periodicals. Different features of such analogous architecture were adapted in Lithuanian dwelling-houses in different ways: the spatial structure of the building was used and interpreted in ones, while in the others – only certain specific details, most often published in such professional press. Three groups of individual dwelling-houses were formed: the elite – benchmark-type, typical -adapted and self-taught architecture. They represented examples of architecture, which over the ten-year’s period were built in parallel and intense mode, until finally the economic conditions prevalent in the post-Soviet Lithuania led to the more practical approach to one’s housing, and the style of post-modernism became unfashionable in Lithuania just like in the remaining part of the world. Santrauka 1987 m. rugsėjo 28 d. LKP CK ir LTSR ministrų tarybos nutarimas Nr. 264 „Dėl individualinės gyvenamųjų namų statybos tolesnio plėtojimo Respublikoje“ į Lietuvos architektūrą po beveik trijų dešimtmečių pertraukos vėl sugrąžino individualaus būsto tipologinę grupę. Tuo metu Vakarų pasaulyje vyravusios postmodernizmo stiliaus tendencijos Lietuvą pasiekdavo daugiausiai riboto spektro profesinės periodikos pavidalu. Lietuvoje individualių gyvenamųjų namų architektūrinė raiška būtent ir rėmėsi užsienio (Japonijos, JAV, Vakarų Europos), vėliau – vietinėje periodikoje publikuotais postmodernizmo stiliaus gyvenamųjų namų projektais. Skirtinguose gyvenamuosiuose namuose analogų savybės buvo pritaikomos nevienodai: vienuose perimama ir interpretuojama pastato erdvinė struktūra, kituose – tik dažniausiai publikuotos detalės. Susiformuoja trys individualių gyvenamųjų namų architektūros grupės: elitinė etaloninė, tipinė adaptuota ir savamokslė. Joms atstovaujantys architektūros pavyzdžiai per dešimties metų laikotarpį statyti lygiagrečiai ir intensyviai, kol galiausiai postsovietinėje šalyje susiklosčiusios ekonominės aplinkybės paskatino praktiškesnį požiūrį į gyvenamąjį būstą, o postmodernizmo stilius, lygiai kaip ir likusiame pasaulyje, tapo nebemadingas. Reikšminiai žodžiai: privatus gyvenamasis namas, postmodernizmas, Lietuvos architektūra, profesinė periodika

Collectivist ideals and Soviet consumer spaces: mikrorayon commercial centres in Vilnius, Lithuania and Tallinn, Estonia

This chapter focuses on Soviet mikrorayon centres—multifunctional social, and commercial centres—built in large housing estates in Vilnius, Lithuania and Tallinn, Estonia from the 1960s to the 1980s. In both countries, ensuring proper services to modern citizens was initially based on the conceptual model of a multistage domestic service system with small shops integrated into the urban fabric next to homes, and larger mikrorayon centres with self-service supermarkets reachable by foot without crossing wide roads. Mikrorayon centres also represented a novel type of urban space. New pedestrian commercial centres, influenced by the Vällingby centre in Stockholm and Tapiola centre near Helsinki, operated as a simulation of traditional city centres in sparse, freely planned new settlements. We argue that the theoretical model of multistage domestic services, as well the ideological and communal mission of the centres, was quickly reworked into a type of space that embraced consumption and individual behaviour within the framework of collectivism. The study shows how the architectural form and visual aesthetic of the centres had a specific role in this. As such, the Soviet mikrorayon centres were the product and defining part of the hybrid nature of late Soviet society and represent a peculiar type of spatiality where conflicting value systems do not exclude each other but instead interact