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Harvard University
Spring 2011

GSD 9107__BAKU: OIL CITY

RESEARCH SEMINAR
Department of Architecture
Department of Urban Planning and Design

Eve Blau eblau@gsd.harvard.edu

Ivan Rupnik, Investigator/Research associate
Sasa Randic, Baku Project Coordinator

Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, formerly part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, is now one
of the most dynamic and rapidly changing urban territories in the world. Located at a critical
geopolitical nexus between Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia, Baku has strong historical,
cultural, and economic ties to both Europe and Asia. Today, the city is undergoing its second
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major oil boom (the first was at the turn of the 20 century) and Baku is poised to become a major
player in the global economy. For Bakus city planners and business elites, that future includes
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the capitals aspiration to be a 21 century first: the oil city that goes green. The intention is to
develop the city and surrounding region on the Baku peninsula using renewable energy
technologies and sustainable practices.

The purpose of the seminar is to analyze the historical development of the city in the context of
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the shifting geopolitics of the region: from late 19 century bourgeois boom town, to Soviet
industrial center, to independent republic and capitalist powerhouse with vast reserves of oil and
natural gas. Emphasis will be on how urban design, planning, and architecture have dealt with the
issue of oil and political change over the course of Bakus modern development. Historical
precedents and contemporary parallels (Los Angeles, Daqing, Dubai) will further augment this
analysis.

In particular, the objective is to take stock of contemporary urban conditions and issues in Baku,
to examine them carefully, historically and spatially, and to consider possible directions and
strategies at a range of different scales for the future.

The seminar will examine

Historical development (planned and unplanned) of the city and region.
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Urban formations directly connected to oil extraction: the early 20 c. Black City and mid
century Oily Rocks in the Caspian Sea, as well as current plans for remediation and off-
shore extraction.
Architecture: Imperial Russian and Stalinist public building, postwar Soviet housing,
current public projects, and strategies for recladding and optimizing space and energy
use in Soviet-era building.
Infrastructure at urban, regional, national, and international scales: networks, pipelines,
railways, trade routes past and future.

Structure and Organization:

The seminar has been structured in collaboration with the Azerbaijan Ministry of Culture and
Architecture University in Baku. We will be working with documents (maps, plans, archival
photographs, etc.) from city archives and planning offices, and with planners, preservationists,
and historians in Baku. The course is conceived as a collaborative research seminar with ongoing
discussion of individual projects, discussions of assigned readings, and guest lectures. The
seminar involves a site visit to Baku February 24March 3.

Assignments:
Mapping and research projects analyzing sites, buildings, urban fabric, contemporary and
historical plans and other forms of documentation spatially and temporally through mapping,
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diagramming, photographic documentation, etc. to understand the evolution of the city, its urban
morphologies and architectural typologies, infrastructural conditions, and distinctive dynamics.
Research topics will be regularly discussed in class throughout the semester, along with assigned
readings.
Students will present the final results of their research in class at the end of the semester and
submit a final paper (including visual documentation, written, and graphic analysis). Due May 2.

Syllabus and Reading (schedule subject to change)

[required readings will be on reserve]

1/27 Introduction: concerns, themes, structure; assignments; schedule

Reading:
Sh. S. Fatulayev-Figarov, The Architectural Encyclopedia of Baku (1978)
(translation/scan)

2/3 Urban Models: Central Asian, Russian, Soviet, Post-Soviet

[relations between the planned and unplanned]
Reading:
R.A. French and F.E. Ian Hamilton, Is there a Socialist City? in The Socialist
City: Spatial Structure and Urban Policy (Wiley and Sons., 1979), pp. 1-21.

Frederic Jameson, History Lessons, in Neil Leach, ed., Architecture and

Revolution (Routledge, 1999), pp. 69-80.

Gregory Andrusz, Wall and Mall: A Metaphor for Metamorphosis, in Sasha

Tsenkova and Zorica Nedovic-Bundic, The Urban Mosaic of Post-Socialist
Europe (Physica-Verlag, 2006), pp. 71-70.

2/10 NO CLASS

2/15: Meeting with Rizvan Bayramov: Baku Preservationist

Reading:
Audrey Altstadt-Mirhadi, Baku: Transformation of a Muslim Town, in Michael F.
Hamm, The City in Late Imperial Russia (Indiana Univ Press, 1983), pp. 283-318.

Baku in Stadt Bauwelt 183 / 36.09 (25 Sept. 2009)

2/17 Research Topics + Mapping Projects for Baku

- Oil + Territory: Networks + infrastructure: pipelines, railways, etc.
- Oil + Urbanism: Black City + Oily Rocks
- Oil Boom Architecture: Ideology, Identity, Performance
Reading:
Armand Mattelart, Mapping Modernity: Utopia and Communication Networks, in
Denis Cosgrove, ed., Mappings (Reaktion, 1999), pp. 169-192.

James Corner, The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique, and Invention, in

Cosgrove, Mappings, pp.213-252.

M. Christine Boyer, Playing with Information: Urbanism in the 21st Century, in

Stephen Read, Jrgen Roseman, Job van Eldijk (eds.) Future City (Abingdon:
Spon, 2005), pp. 156-173.
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2/243/3 SITE VISIT TO BAKU

Reading:
J.D. Henry, Baku: An Eventful History (London, c. 1900), Chapters 1-3, 8.

Thomas De Waal, Caspian Energy and Caucasian Corridors, The Caucasus:

An Introduction (Oxofrd Univ Press, 2010), pp.167-187.

3/10 Baku Debrief: Midterm Student Presentations

[SPRING BREAK]

3/24 Oil + Territory: Transterritorial Networks + infrastructure: pipelines,

railways, etc. [comparative contexts: Trans-Arabian and other pipelines]
Reading
New Geographies_02: Landscapes of Energy [Ghosen, Heim, Bridge, Jazairy,
Barry, Melosi, Managh]

Rania Ghosen, The Pipeline: Power, Infrstructure, Territory, GSD Platform08

(2008), pp. 230-233.

3/31 Oil + Urbanism: Black City, Oily Rocks + Micro-regions

[comparative contexts: Los Angeles, Houston, Daqing]
Reading: See Azerbaijan International scans: Oily Rocks etc.

Ernst Giese,Transformation of Islamic Cities in Soviet Middle Asia into Socialist

Cities. in French and Hamilton, The Socialist City, pp.145-165.

[Frank Ruchala, Oil: Crude City, in Kazys Varnelis, ed., The Infrastructural City:
Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles (Actar, 2008), pp. 54-67]

4/7 No Class

4/14 Oil Boom + Bust Architecture: Ideology, Identity, Performance_

Oil Barons, Stalinist public buildings, Soviet pre-fab, post-Soviet
recladding
Reading: See Azerbaijan International scans: Baku architecture
William C. Brumfield, Gold in Azure: 1000 Years of Russian Architecture
(Godine, 1983), Chapt 6, pp. 325-358.

Blair Ruble, From Khrushcheby to Korobki Chapt 8, in Brumfield and Ruble,

Russian Housing in the Modern Age (Cambridge Univ Press, pp. 232-270.

Industrialized building speech, 1954 Nikita Khrushchev/ Microrayon Handbook,

in Volume 21: The Block, pp. 26-36
[see also Bart Goldhoorn, Alexander Sverdlov, Microrayon: Transformations of
the Soviet City under Capitalism, 14-18].

4/21 Summation: Contemporary Baku: projects, plans, ambitions, and

aspirations: lecture/discussion: Sasa Randic