The Heydar Aliyev, educational and cultural center, is the building that in 2014 enabled the studio Zaha Hadid Architects to win the first prize in the Design of the Year Award. The structure that is located in Baku, Azerbaijan, takes its name of the former governor of the country and is situated halfway between the airport and the city center.
Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu, project architect at Zaha Hadid studio, wanted that the Heydar Aliyev Centre represents a break with the Soviet past of the country whose authoritarianism has also been reflected in the architecture of the buildings. "They wanted to have something unique, something which is looking at the future, somehow showing their soft, romantic side but at the same time their optimistic side" said the Bekiroglu.
The building reflects the fluidity of the Azeri architecture and traditional floral motifs have been revisited in a contemporary key to create ornaments that run through the building from the floor to the dome. The exterior is clad in glass-fibre-reinforced concrete and steel frames that hide the vertical supports inside the walls.
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