Contemporary urban environment: the image of the history and the history of the image

The article is devoted to the figurative system of the urban environment and to the actual aspects of common evolution of the city and its inhabitants. The examples of artistic-plastic history of the architectural environment confirming the integral character of its internal processes are analyzed. Architecture is interpreted as an art describing the man’s history – new, newest, created every day! Special attention is paid to the problems of memory and imagination, “theatrical” perception and artistic forms of ecological thinking. Tracking penetration of the integral origin in architecture, art and culture as a whole, the author predicts appearance of hybrid, transitional artistic forms on the boundary of everyday life and art, identifies main trends of transformation of the image field of the architectural-artistic environment. By the examples of contemporary architecture and environmental design, several aspects are considered consecutively, which are arranged according to the author’s logic: live history and memory of the place, play of contexts, collage of times and “theatre” of history, contradictions of the today’s image of the city, architectural image as personal history of the artist, environment without history as probable image of the future. Article is accompanied by the author’s photographs.