I attended the 4th International Conference of Livable Environments & Architecture in Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Architecture. The theme of this conference, which was held on July 9-11, 2009 in Trabzon - Turkey, was stated as "(RE/DE) CONSTRUCTIONS IN ARCHITECTURE". I had a speech about transitions from Soviet to Post-Soviet era in Baku city, collaboratively with Dr. Senem ZEYBEKOGLU SADRI. The conference program can be reached from the conference website and our speech text is below. Our full paper is published in conference proceeding (ISBN:97897501716-2-8) from page 435 to 448.
(RE/DE) CONSTRUCTIONS OF CITY AND SOCIETY:
TRANSITIONS FROM SOVIET TO POST- SOVIET ERA IN BAKU CITY
Abstract
This paper aims to understand the relationship between the political reconstruction of society and transformation of city through investigating the changes of concepts such as public and private spaces after the transition from a planned socialist economy to a free market economy in Baku city, Azerbaijan. First, I will give a brief background on the urban development of the city, and then my colleague will talk about re/deconstructions of city and society.
URBAN DEVELOPMENT OF THE CITY
In general, Baku’s urban development can be examined under four major eras; Medieval, Oil Boom, Soviet and Post-Soviet eras. Geographically, the traces of the first three eras can be observed in three concentric circles which surround the same core: the inner core was shaped during the Medieval period, and is contained within the massive citadel walls of the "Inner City"; the Oil Boom era characterizes the next, middle orbit; and the third circle, which surrounds the middle orbit was shaped during the Soviet era.
The impacts of the Post-Soviet era cannot be defined by exact geographical borders. These appear in all of these three circles and cover the traces of the previous eras.
Medieval Era - The Inner City (Ichari Shahar), located at the centre of Modern Baku, inside the fortress walls, constitutes the medieval image of Baku. This area is included in UNESCO’s list of protected sites.
Oil Boom Era - The rapidly growing oil industry during the 19th century brought about a sudden growth in Baku. During the 19th century the city extended its limits to an area of 1300 hectares and the rate of the growth of the population outran all of the big cities in Europe.
Starts with the Soviet Era - Architecture and urban planning in Baku city can be categorized under four different styles: constructivist architecture, national architecture, architecture of Stalin and architecture of Khrushchev eras.
Constructivism put an impact on the architecture of Baku especially between the years 1920-1935. Reconstruction of the city in order to improve the living conditions was the most important issue during this period. Numerous housing projects and public buildings including hospitals, educational, cultural and entertainment buildings started to be constructed especially in the suburban areas.
With the establishment of the Union of the Architects of Azerbaijan, the national style appeared. Azerbaijani architects started to use the national architectural language of Azerbaijan in their buildings and this period is called as Azerbaijani architecture of Soviet era.
The architecture of the period between 1930s and 1950s is defined as architecture of Stalin’s era. During this period the central part of the city was reconstructed. Old buildings were destroyed and buildings with unordinary heights were constructed in their place, several projects of town building were regulated in suburban areas for dwelling of inhabitants living in demolished buildings.
After 1950s the period identified with Khrushchev started. In 1958 a general plan entitled as the Decree of the Soviet Ministers of the Republic was prepared. This plan marked the development of the city for the following 20 years and aimed to improve the quality of living conditions of houses and decrease the outgoings of constructions. This period witnessed the construction of large scale mass housing projects, application of new construction methods and the use of new materials such as concrete, metal and glass.
POST-SOVIET BAKU
In the last decade of the 20th century, USSR collapsed and Azerbaijan opened its borders to free market and international economic organizations such as IMF and WB and rapidly transformed into capitalist system. The first stage of the economic development of the country was marked by a great oil contract signed in the year 1994 in Baku known as “Contract of the Century”. Later, especially after the second Gulf War, due to increasing oil prices, Azerbaijan became one of the fastest growing economies of the world.
This “Oil Boom” was paralleled by a “Building Boom”. Numerous high-rise buildings have “sprung up like mushrooms after rain”. This fast construction without depending on any plan or strategy presented a chaotic development in the city. In addition to its disorder, especially in the central part of the city with its historical value and diverse architectural styles, this stream was disruptive. With Goltz’s sentence, “the Baku which was built by the First Oil Boom was being destroyed by the Second Oil Boom”.
In addition to its damage on city’s architecture and urbanism, this fast economic development and transition caused crucial social effects especially resulting from the war with Armenia and its continued effects; the country’s poor social programme and inequitable development plan, and lack of coordination in planning of local scale.
The Post-Soviet Baku has two faces because of different powers affecting the city at the same time. On the one hand, luxurious and splendid buildings are being constructed by using the latest architectural technologies, in order to create an image for the city that could attract global capital. On the other hand, many people who had lost their jobs and social securities after the collapse of the Soviet system and others who had come to the city in search for job opportunities. In other words, it is possible to see the two faces of the city at the same time: the glorious face of the global city and the catastrophic face of deprivation and poverty.
(RE/DE) CONSTRUCTION OF CITY AND SOCIETY
Baku is a good example of reconstruction of society and city with immense changes that it went through in a short period of time. In this sense, looking at contradictions of the society and the built environment will give us the opportunity to grasp changing values during transition from soviet system to free market system.
Property ownership constitutes the most important of these changes. Encounters with the idea of property ownership for the first time through the programs of privatization of public housing agitated the urge of property ownership. The demand of having quantitatively more houses rather than liveable houses originated a new construction sector. According to this new system, contractors finish the construction work of a house at the level of rough construction, without doing any installations or finishing such as doors, windows, coating and floor covering. After that, clients buy the houses in the form of rough construction, with prices half as much as completed houses, and do the fine works according to their own will. This new system, in which clients can buy two houses with the price of one single house, increased the purchasing power and consequently boosted profits in construction sector.
In an open letter of journalist Sultan Sultanoghlu to First Lady of Azerbaijan, the relationship between capital and construction sector was reported. The part which was quoting Karl Marx states that:
“Capital is happy with a 20-percent return, delighted with a 50-percent return, ecstatic with a 100-percent return, delirious with a 200-percent return. And with a 300-percent return, Capital becomes insane. And the return rate in the building boom in Baku is 300-percent”.
Another issue related with property ownership is the maintenance of buildings. One can easily observe that communal sense did not progress in Baku city due to deprivation of people from sense of ownership during the Soviet era. As a result, people did not feel any responsibility for taking care of public spaces of their home environment such as entrances, stairways, courtyards or facades and all public spaces are in poor conditions. In addition to this lack of communal sense, the contradictions between strong wills of the property owners are also apparent on the facades of the buildings. Each apartment owner paints his apartment’s facade with a different colour. And these colourful facades show the lack of common mind in decision making even in the neighbourhood scale.
The existence of private property has also put an impact on traffic in the city. During the Soviet era, automobile ownership was strictly limited and if a person wanted to buy a car, he had to enrol in a long list. This limitation had enabled a control over motorized vehicle traffic in the city. However, streets of Post-Soviet Baku are full of European cars, which can be easily purchased. But the maintenance of streets did not come along the same way with the increase in car ownership. In addition to that, there has not been any improvement in public transportation since Soviet period and metro and public buses are in poor quality.
Furthermore, population growth in the city centre has also augmented motorized traffic and this has increased the number of cars. For that reason, the streets and wide boulevards which used to serve pedestrians during the Soviet era are now dominated by cars and full of traffic jam and noise. Traffic problem also complicated access from one place to another in the city, and this has led to the creation of polar zones and inequality within the city as centre/periphery, high quality/poor quality areas (Khanlou, 2005).
This inequality does not only exist between different parts of the city, but also between families living in the same apartment building. The construction of interiors of apartments by apartment owners resulted in different interiors depending on the economic conditions of owners.
The concept of order provided by the central government has also changed. With the disappearance of the central authority, efforts of producing long term urban development strategies have also vanished. Moreover, the pace of growth of the city does not allow such kind of planned development. The lack of a metropolitan municipality which can govern the city as a whole brings the lack of planning and this results in inadequacy in areas of infrastructure, development and heritage policies (Khanlou, 2005).
This lack of perspective and long term approach has also affected people. Architectural make-up has replaced fundamental solutions. Embellishing old buildings through wrapping their facades is not only a way of covering their problems, but also declares a good image of the building and provides good income for their owners. However, this practice and in addition to it, construction of low-standard and weak buildings to reduce expenses in an earthquake area like Baku threatens the safety of two million people living in the city.
CONCLUSION
In Post-Soviet Baku, the decisions between old/new, historical/contemporary, social life/individual benefits and motorized vehicles/pedestrians are given according to economic values, rather than human values. As a result, a fragmentation among the inhabitants of the city in terms of economic conditions has appeared.
Nevertheless, this fragmentation does not entail physical borders, but, as Peter Marcuse states clearly, it sets social, cultural and economic borders within society. “Iron curtain” was destructed but is being reconstructed again as perceivable borders among people, putting heavy impacts on living conditions of people.
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