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THE CITY IN A LABYRINTH OF REFLECTIONS: FROM A CRAFT SAMPLE TO AN IMAGE OF THE CITY // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2022. Issue 1 (31). P. 12-23

The article explores the ideal, reference image of the city. The aim of the article is to analyze the correlation of the ideal image of the city with its similarities, reflections of the prototype. To illustrate the functioning of the image of the city as an ideal object, the image of Amber from Roger Zelazny’s work The Chronicles of Amber is used. The objectives of the article are: (1) to carry out a theoretical description of the metaphysical construction of Platonism and Neoplatonism reproduced in Zelazny’s work; (2) to show, with the help of the methodological approach of Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology, that the hero’s desire to return to their city can be interpreted as a movement along the path of individuation, in which the archetype of the self is actualized, and a person’s desire to achieve the fullness of being is realized; (3) to trace the use of the metaphor of reflection in the urban discourse of world culture, expressed, in particular, in the “reflection of names”, to reveal the mechanism of changing the hierarchical position of the prototype and reflection; (4) to demonstrate the multidimensional and paradoxical nature of urban reflections on the material of the St. Petersburg text of Russian culture; (5) to trace the genetic link between urban planning and handicraft activities of the pre-industrial era. The result of the study is a description of the material, procedural, subjective, and social forms of reproduction of the sample, in which the ascent from the craft sample to the image of the city is made. One of the versions of the beginning of city design is proposed. The conclusion is made about the similarity between urban planning design and handicraft activity, the creation of metaphysical systems, and the construction of scientific theories.

Keywords: image of city, craft sample, The Chronicles of Amber, metaphor of reflection