Heydar Aliyev Center
Man-made
Cultural
Description
Heydar Aliyev Center
The Heydar Aliyev Center is a building complex in Baku, Azerbaijan designed by the architect Zaha Hadid and noted for its distinctive architecture and flowing, curved style that eschews sharp angles. The center is named for Heydar Aliyev, the leader of Soviet-era Azerbaijan from 1969 to 1982, and president of Azerbaijan from October 1993 to October 2003.
The Center is located close to the city center and consists of a conference hall (auditorium) with 1000 seats, a conference center, workshops, a gallery hall and a museum.
An internationally recognized architectural work, the building of the Heydar Aliyev Center has become a signature landmark of modern Baku due to its innovative and cutting-edge design. In 2014, Centre won the Design Museum’s Design of the Year Award 2014 despite concerns about the site's human rights record. This makes Zaha Hadid the first woman to win the top prize in that competition.
The design of the Heydar Aliyev Center establishes a continuous, fluid relationship between its surrounding plaza (as the ground surface) and the building’s interior. Fluidity in architecture is not new to this region. In historical Islamic architecture, rows, grids, or sequences of columns flow to infinity like trees in a forest, establishing non-hierarchical space. Continuous calligraphic and ornamental patterns flow from carpets to walls, walls to ceilings, ceilings to domes, establishing seamless relationships and blurring distinctions between architectural elements and the ground they inhabit.