The Poetics of Urban Culture: A Systematic Review of Cultural Semiotics, Landscape Codes, and Artistic Representations with a Focus on Kazakhstan

This study presents a systematic qualitative synthesis of urban culture by integrating four dimensions that are often addressed separately: cultural semiotics and the city as text; landscape codes and landscape identity; aesthetic, spiritual, and symbolic values associated with collective memory; and artistic and digital representations. It also examines how the literature represents post-independence urbanization in Kazakhstan in comparison with selected international and post-socialist examples. The research used a qualitative systematic review design and followed the PRISMA 2020 statement as a reporting guideline. We identified 438 records through searches of the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus; after removing duplicates and screening, we included 50 studies in the qualitative synthesis. The findings show that urban space is conceptualized as a cultural text through semiotic approaches and landscape codes; landscape codes extend from street names and monumental architecture to public art and digital interfaces. Aesthetic and spiritual values are tied to collective memory through sites of memory, urban myths, and ideological rewriting. Urban poetics emerges through a multimodal repertoire of representation, spanning literature and cinema to architecture, music, public art, and digital media. Kazakhstan holds a prominent analytical position in the literature examined; however, the search was not limited to Kazakhstan. The study's main contribution is an integrated cultural framework connecting semiotic codes, landscape identity, memory and belonging, and artistic representations.