WS25/26

„Baku, the capital of the Azerbaijan Republic, was one of the major industrial cities in the Soviet Union. In contrast, the post-Soviet development of Baku has witnessed a major reconstruction with grandiose construction projects, which is meant to turn the city into a global city. Consequently, the urban landscape has been transformed in many parts of the city, while informal settlements and a deteriorating environ-ment have become the main scourges of Baku. However, while the administration has attempted to follow the model of Dubai, in practice, the urban development is characteristically chaotic due to the absence of effective regulation and planning. Indeed, with the continued influx of oil revenue, the city is spending vast sums on new projects, buildings and infrastructure without any apparent strategic plan“ (Valiyev, 2013)

Against this background, the master's project / studio tries to identify the key forces and processes underlying the transformation of Baku and looks at the problems haunting the city. It deals with special issues, opportunities and challenges of the urban economy (e.g. economic development axis (along the Caspian coast), tourism, retail agglomerations, new work, trade diverson economies), urban planning (e.g. retrospective urban planning procedures, mirkorayons, problems of internal migration / informality), urban sociology (e.g. brain drain of the young population) and urban ecology (e.g. sealing and desertification) in the country's capital - Baku.

The project is divided into a preparatory and follow-up phase of approx. 6-7 weeks with a stay of one week in Baku (Azerbaijan) to collect, record and obtain original data (core period: 7-14 December 2025).

In the preparatory phase, so-called task forces (small groups of 3-4 students) will be formed to collect, analyse and evaluate material on the overarching topics (urban planning, urban economics, urban sociology and urban ecology). In addition, we take a deep dive with Experts on Azjierbaidschan in Germany in order to obtain hands-on insight into latest topics. Both steps shall help the groups to pick topics and formulate specific research question(s) to be negotiated in the second three weeks of the project, before the main dish of the studio -the research trip to Baku from 7-14 December 2025. The follow-up phase aims to document, analyze and write up collected material.

The aim will be to publish a kind of anthology at the end of the project, containing contributions on the selected topics/sub-projects and addressing current opportunities and challenges of the urban economy in the capital of Azerbaijan; depending on the quality of the contributions, publication either in an ISR series or in relevant specialist journals will be considered.

In this project /studio, students will deal with a wide range of methods, which focus in particular on qualitative empirical working methods (e.g. recording original data by means of observation, mapping, surveys, sometimes also active monitoring of the process or media analyses on site); the aim is to present interim (before the visit to the city, December 2025) and final results (mid-February 2026) and then document them in a project report (see anthology).Local and international experts and implementing institutions will be actively involved in the project.

Room - A904a, Architectural building
! First Session on Friday 17.10.2025 - 10h, every other week Thursdays 14-18h

Lehrender: Prof. Suwala

Anmeldung über die Projektwahl des Labor K

ISR Presentation (Feb 13th)