Heydar Aliyev Center: Explore Baku’s Most Prominent Building

The Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center is a post-modernist building located in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The building, which features fluid lines and glass panels, is a cultural hub near the city center and is Baku's most prominent building. Lead architect Zaha Hadid intended for the design concept to merge modern design with Azeri culture.

The cultural center’s auditorium, which can hold 1,000 people, is off the main entrance area on the ground floor. The second floor (called the first floor in Azerbaijan) comprises an exhibition space, a conference hall, and a grand staircase. The Heydar Aliyev Museum encompasses several floors of the center. The exhibition halls regularly host temporary artwork, public gatherings, and formal or ceremonial events.

In 2007, judges selected Zaha Hadid Architects to design the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center in Baku, Azerbaijan. The lead architects were Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher in conjunction with the UK firm MBLD. Construction on the cultural center began in 2007, and the construction process took five years.

The project team's inspiration was a fluid form that broke free of the flat, communist-style design that was predominant across the country (the Republic of Azerbaijan was a former state in the Soviet Union, where communist-style architecture was popular). The London Design Museum chose the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center as the Design of the Year in 2014. Hadid, an Iraqi-British architect, was the first woman to win the prestigious design award, which the museum bestows upon those responsible for architectural masterpieces.

Construction of the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center in Azerbaijan required unconventional structural solutions. Lead architect Zaha Hadid chose building materials that would facilitate elaborate formations and the introduction of curved surfaces in the building’s complex geometry. Here are a few areas where the building materials resulted in unique characteristics:

1. 1. Exterior design: Werner Sobek, a German engineer and architect, designed the exterior building envelope, which consists of a glass curtain wall system (glass in an aluminum-framed wall, giving the appearance of a solid glass structure) and a large-scale 3D solid skin, which forms the white roof and sweeping side walls.
2. 2. Form: There are no straight lines inside the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center nor its exterior surfaces. Part of the shape of the building resembles an undulating wave.
3. 3. Frame: The Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center consists of two main building parts—a concrete structure and steel frames (also known as a space frame system). The structural system’s steel space frame features a special tubular system manufactured by MERO-TSK International. The exterior cladding materials consist of glass fiber–reinforced concrete (GFRC) and glass fiber–reinforced polyester (GFRP).
4. 4. Interior design: The building's interior is a continuation of the fluid lines of the exterior. The modernist features of the interior include curved walls, natural wood surfaces, polished white stone and natural materials, and large glass-paneled walls.

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