ABSTRACT
Rural architecture in Azerbaijan has traditionally been characterized by walled property. Consequently, pre-socialist neighbourhoods in Baku are dominated by the typical courtyard houses and walled plots as well as those being built informally by rural migrants in the post–World War II era. After socialism, private dwelling construction seemed to make inflationary use of walls, as if to compensate for decades of prescribed fencing standards. This chapter describes the importance of material thresholds from public into the private home and their symbolic qualities. Most important are curtains which further serve as a trope to unravel different expressions of privacy and its enactment in everyday practice. The chapter provides some ethnography that allows to grasp another central capacity of cars beyond their function of providing mobility – their capacity to being transformed into a private and intimate space that conventional homes rarely provide for.
