Heydar Aliyev Centre

• Architect:


  Zaha Hadid
• Materials & processes:


  Parametric design with shell structure of concrete elements and steel frames enclosed by a skin made in Glass Fibre Reinforced Concrete (GFRC) and Glass Fibre Reinforced Polyester (GFRP) and semi-reflective glass
• Commission:


  The Republic of Azerbaijan (state). Cost: estimated $250m (original quote $137m)
• Function:


  • Cultural Centre i.e. a civic public building
  • It is the primary centre for promoting contemporary Azeri culture, alongside a display of historic culture.
  • Multi-functioning building: serves as a cultural hub, workspace and museum
  • Commemorative homage to national leader: Heydar Aliyev; symbolic of the new global forward-looking, modernised state and outright propaganda.
• Dates:


  ZHA won international competition in 2007; opened in May 2012 by President Ilham Aliyev (son of the first President Heydar Aliyev). Won Design Museum ‘Design of the Year Award’ 2014.
• Location:


  Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, Eurasia; on a peninsula in the Caspian Sea
• CQ: Hadid


  “Elaborate formations such as undulations, bifurcations, folds, and inflections modify this plaza surface into an architectural landscape that performs a multitude of functions: welcoming, embracing, and directing visitors through different levels of the interior. With this gesture, the building blurs the conventional differentiation between architectural object and urban landscape, building envelope and urban plaza, figure and ground, interior and exterior.”
• Style:

  • Parametricism (a term coined by Schumacher), a new global style developed through digital culture and advances in computer software using a system of parametric design with multiple iterations.
  • Rejection of classicism & modernism
  • Rigid forms, simple repetitions, unrelated isolated elements are taboo.
• Form


  • All forms are soft/curvilinear - influence of organic architecture, catenary curves and shell models from Gaudi etc
  • The style of the building mirrors the landscape it inhabits
• Heydar Aliyev Centre in relation to nature


  • An analogy with nature would be the relationship of vegetation to topography.
  • Elements are malleable and variable, lines are free not rigid, planes are not flat surfaces but radiate and ripple, and volumes bleed into each other for continuous varying spaces which allow for rich interior diversity.
• Compositional value:


  • It has a continuous shell structure and no columns.
  • Sweeping up to a peak at the rear, and spilling out and bleeding onto the plaza, while also continuing the exterior ground surface into the wall surface and up into the roof surface.
  • Similarly, in the interior the staircase bleeds into the walls and turns into lighting strips
• CQS


  Hadid described it as a “completely seamless building” and “very calming” for its fluid qualities with spaces unfolding while immersing the viewer in its strong white light. “It melts, its slides, it wooshes, it juts, it moves” (Yentob).
• Influences


  It is a very sensual, curvaceous style. These features link it both to European Romanticism and to Islamic traditions. “The center is famous for its fluid shape, which the architects intended as reaction to the rigid architectures of the Soviet era as well as a reference to Islamic calligraphy and to elements of the traditional Azeri architecture."
• Structure & form:


  • Baku, which in old Farsi means ‘where wind beats’, is subject to high wind throughout the year, and lies within a seismic zone.
  • The freeform structure derives from the architectural design concept of modifying a single surface to adopt different functional requirements.
• How is the structure achieved?

  • Vertical elements are absorbed by the envelope and curtain wall system.
  • ZHA used an ingenious and elegant structural system, which has two collaborating systems: a concrete structure combined with a space frame system
• Visitor's experience and how it's achieved:

  Because vertical structural elements are absorbed by the envelope and curtain wall system, the large-scale column-free spaces can allow the visitor to experience the fluidity of the interior.
• Another important issue is the buildings skin...

  To make the surface so continuous that it appears homogenous, a broad range of different functions, construction logics and technical systems were brought together, and integrated, into the building’s envelope.

  It makes the building appear homogenous since different parts were covered and connected.
• there are no rigid geometrical structural forms, instead there are soft parametrically variable forms creating omnidirectional space, only limited by structural constraints and fabrication constraints.


  curved ‘boot columns’ at the west, and the cantilever beams’ ‘dovetails’ tapering towards the free end, supporting the building’s envelope at the east.
• Light:


  Semi-reflective windows have an up and down transom pattern while the interior has brilliant streaks of neon light that give a sense of energy to the space
• Decoration:


  There is no added decoration, the total form - all in white- itself is decorative and resembles calligraphic forms with its stereo metric sweeping outlines.
• Volume and mass


  There is little sense of mass and void, rather the varied volumes bleed into each other to create continuous varying moving spaces, rather than space contained with borders.

  Space moves from exterior to interior and back through large scale fenestration and bright light reflecting off the tiled surfaces.
• Aims and intentions:


  optimistic symbol of growth with the new republic’s oil money being invested in signature buildings. Finally as a monument to a controversial first family, a region, and an emergent national culture in a newly independent country.

  Democracy and liberalism are symbolised via the permeability and transparency of the structure. It directly commemorates Heydar Aliyev and promotes his son the current President: “a huge show-off project for the ruling family” (Yentob).
• Elements of a shared heritage:

  Baku wants to promote its long and complex cultural history within the Islamic world, as well as its European aspects in its latest cycle of development aimed at tourism.

  Hadid’s personal dual cultural heritage meshes perfectly with that of the new Baku.

  Hadid's father was the leader of the National Democratic Party so her family was liberal and progressive
• Landscapes influence


  The distinctive mud volcanoes (“flowing like lava from mountain peaks”) and mountain ranges of Azerbaijan alongside the sand dunes of Hadid’s Iraqi childhood are reflected in the organic lines of the auditorium, and the silhouette is like an artificial mountain range.
• Critics + orientalism


  The local population, and some critics, like to suggest the supine form of the building references the pure white skin of European Orientalist female nudes “all form and no structure”, with ‘cleavages’ and ‘tucks’ and ‘tactile curves’. While others view it as a tent – referencing the Silk Road caravanserai, or a “turban unravelling in the wind” alluding to the Turkic nomadic heritage