The metropolitan region of Baku is facing the challenge of a triple transition: post-Sovietism, post-industrialism, and post-oil economy. In this particular context, the regeneration of this large territory (some 5,500 hectares), which centrally includes industries inherited from Soviet planning, critical infrastructures as well as ill-suited and also modern housing, offers a unique opportunity to present the methods and tools of a large-scale ecological urban planning project.

This doctoral thesis focuses on the elements of the territory in question as well as their interconnectedness by means of “active description” (Corboz, 2001). Active description concentrates on ongoing description making it possible to explore other ways of development than those which are presented by the various current territorial and urban strategies.

To this end, this thesis introduces different theoretical currents (landscape ecological urbanism, landscape approach, territorialism) from a position that is firmly inspired by the inversion of the site-program relation.

From this theoretical base, the thesis approaches Baku’s territory from its inception as a city, in an exercise that illustrates urban history as much as the history of urban planning and typo-morphological reading. The objective is to rise the persistent invariant questions (relation to the sea, relations to natural resources, international openness) and other more temporal ones (urban dynamics, functioning of the city, emerging phenomena, etc.) which have given shape to the metropolitan area.

This thesis also clarifies the different qualities of the territory in question, to set out potential axes of development. It redefines Baku’s territory in its contemporary challenges by targeting the period that began with independence from USSR. The thesis aims to illustrate the opportunities and constraints of this territory by taking a particular interest in the stakeholder’s reasons behind their planning choices. In doing so, it draws up a rational inventory of the various resources at their disposal (regulatory, land, financial, institutional resources, etc.) which are used to transform space.

It uses a SWOT analysis to identify the quality of practice in Baku’s territorial development while facing the current political, energetic, and developmental transitions. Ultimately, this research outlines the fundamental elements contributing to Baku’s various stakeholders and their development of the territorial fabric and space.