Heydar Aliyev Center

Few buildings anywhere look so little like buildings. The Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku rises out of its landscaped hill as a single white surface that folds, swells and peels away from the ground, turning wall into roof and roof into plaza without a visible seam or a single hard corner. Zaha Hadid Architects won the commission in a 2007 competition, and the result, finished in 2012, has become the emblem of the city's oil-era rebuilding: a 74-metre-high wave of some 57,500 square metres that even appears on the national 200-manat banknote.

The trick of the design is that the structure hides itself. A steel space frame working together with concrete cores carries the free-form skin, so the interior can open into vast column-free halls, and the cladding is made of almost 17,000 panels of glass-fibre-reinforced concrete and polyester, nearly every one of a different shape, their joints sweeping across the curves as fine lines. Inside, the same continuity carries on: floors become ramps, ceilings fall into walls, and the glazed fronts between the folds give long views across the park and toward the Caspian city. Light changes the building through the day, from flat chalk-white at noon to a play of soft shadows in the long evening sun, and after dark it glows from within.

In 2014 the centre took the London Design Museum's Design of the Year award, the first time a woman had won the prize outright. Behind the façade it is a working cultural complex with a 1,000-seat auditorium, conference halls and galleries. The museum tells the story of the statesman it is named after, including cars from his official fleet, while the temporary galleries rotate exhibitions of art and design. One of the most enjoyable displays is Mini Azerbaijan, a hall of two dozen scale models of the country's architectural landmarks.

The building suffered a fire shortly after its soft opening in 2012 and was fully open again by November 2013. Its sloping lawns, pools and paths are as much part of the experience as the halls: walk the full circuit outside to see how the skin lifts at the entrances and dives back into the ground on the far side.

Getting there

The centre stands in Baku itself, about 3 km from the old city and the seafront. Heydar Aliyev International Airport (GYD) is around 18 km away by road. The nearest metro station is Nariman Narimanov, roughly a 10–15 minute walk along Tabriz Street.