Aserbaidschans Wirtschaft wächst rasant. Das Land erlebt seinen zweiten Ölboom. Formelle wie auch informelle Sektoren florieren.
Allerdings ist die Entwicklung im angebrochenen 21. Jahrhundert besonders gravierend: Grundstückspreise schießen in die Höhe und allein seit dem Jahr 2000 wurden mehr als 800 neue Hochhäuser in den Innenstadt Bakus errichtet.
Im Rahmen seiner Diplomarbeit hat der Fotografiestudent Sebastian Burger Baku besucht. Er dokumentiert in seinen Bildern die ästhetischen Auswirkungen der sozioökonomischen Veränderung Bakus.
Die Architekturstudentin Orinana Kraemer widmet sich in ihrer Bachelor-Thesis dem Thema neuer Wohn-Typologien im heutigen Baku und erklärt dem Rezipient das Phänomen des Temporären in dieser Metropole.


Azerbaijan's economy is booming. The country experiences its second oil boom. Formal and informal sectors are flourishing.
The Persian name of the Caspian metropolis Baku does not only describe its weather but could also link to its contrasty urban history.
However the development of the early 21st century is particularly serious: property prices are soaring and between the years 2000 and 2008, more than 800 new high rises have been erected in the city of Baku.
Although Azerbaijan is looking back onto a rich urban planning history, rows of Wilhelminian style-like buildings, boulevards and wide promenades shape the cityscape around the oriental core and provide a look-and-feel similar to Paris or Berlin.
New buildings are often vacant and apartments are frequently regarded as financial investment.
The rapidly changing cityscape of Baku goes in hand with slow elimination of Azerbaijani cultural heritage of the time around 1900.
This book aims at revealing views onto Baku`s vanishing cultural heritage, substitutional for the globalized development of many other states of the former UDSSR.
Its target is to sensibilize the audience for their responsibility within this development and to increase awareness for global interdependencies.
Within his diploma thesis the photographer Sebastian Burger visited Baku. With his pictures he documents the aesthetic effects of the socioeconomic changes in Baku. He shows us the existing, changes, the new, the old and how people find their way within it.
60 colour images and one information graphic. The photographs are supplemented by texts by the architect Oriana Kraemer.