Heydar Aliyev Centre, Azerbaijan

Info & Photography: Zaha Hadid Architects

Photopher: Hufton+Crow

Baku’s Heydar Aliyev Centre is a national symbol for Azerbaijan, a catalyst for regeneration, and, in the broadest sense, a regional showpiece.  IAnD makes an exception by bringing you a much lengthier feature with substantial details of this superlative project...

The Heydar Aliyev Centre truly is a labour of love. Zaha Hadid Architects was appointed as design architects of the Heydar Aliyev Centre following a competition in 2007. The Centre, designed to become the primary building for the nation’s cultural programs, breaks from the rigid and often monumental Soviet architecture that is so prevalent in Baku, aspiring instead to express the sensibilities of Azeri culture and the optimism of a nation that looks to the future. In this, the design is contextual.

Photographer: Iwan Baan

It is also audacious. It has drawn on expertise from Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the Commonwealth of Independent States, as well as further afield.  The narrative follows an uncompromising architectural vision, unbridled geometric inventiveness, attention to detail, and resourceful engineering which, according to project architect Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu, involved constructing mock-ups of practically everything to evaluate appearance as well as performance; the contractors’ and engineers’ quest for faster, lighter, more buildable answers to problems posed by irregular, non-rectilinear geometry and large column-free spaces — and the project team’s acquiescence to an approach, which was emphatically led not by engineering, but by architecture.

Photographers: Hufton+Crow & Iwan Baan

The design establishes a continuous, fluid relationship between its surrounding plaza and the building’s interior. The plaza, as the ground surface; accessible to all as part of Baku’s urban fabric, rises to envelop an equally public interior space and define a sequence of event spaces dedicated to the collective celebration of contemporary and traditional Azeri culture.

Photographer: Hufton+Crow

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.

Photographer:Helene Binet

Photographer: Hufton+Crow

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. The design relates to that historical understanding of architecture, not through the use of mimicry or a limiting adherence to the iconography of the past, but rather by developing a firmly contemporary interpretation, reflecting a more nuanced understanding.

Photographer: Iwan Baan

Photographer: Hufton+Crow

Responding to the topographic sheer drop that formerly split the site in two; the project introduces a precisely terraced landscape that establishes alternative connections and routes between public plaza, building, and underground parking. This solution avoids additional excavation and landfill, and successfully converts an initial disadvantage of the site into a key design feature.

Photographer: Helene Binet

One of the most critical yet challenging elements of the project was the architectural development of the building’s skin. The architect’s ambition to achieve a surface so continuous that it appears homogenous, required a broad range of different functions, construction logics and technical systems had to be brought together and integrated into the building’s envelope. Advanced computing allowed for the continuous control and communication of these complexities among the numerous project participants.

Photographers: Hufton+Crow & Iwan Baan

The Heydar Aliyev Centre principally consists of two collaborating systems: a concrete structure combined with a space frame system. In order to achieve large-scale column-free spaces that allow the visitor to experience the fluidity of the interior, vertical structural elements are absorbed by the envelope and curtain wall system. The particular surface geometry fosters unconventional structural solutions, such as the introduction of curved ‘boot columns’ to achieve the inverse peel of the surface from the ground to the West of the building, and the ‘dovetail’ tapering of the cantilever beams that support the building envelope to the East of the site.

Photographer: Hufton+Crow

The space frame system enabled the construction of a free-form structure and saved significant time throughout the construction process, while the substructure was developed to incorporate a flexible relationship between the rigid grid of the space frame and the free-formed exterior cladding seams. These seams were derived from a process of rationalizing the complex geometry, usage, and aesthetics of the project. Glass Fibre Reinforced Concrete (GFRC) and Glass Fibre Reinforced Polyester (GFRP) were chosen as ideal cladding materials, as they allow for the powerful plasticity of the building’s design, while responding to very different functional demands related to a variety of situations: plaza, transitional zones and envelope.

In this architectural composition, if the surface is the music, then the seams between the panels are the rhythm. Numerous studies were carried out on the surface geometry to rationalize the panels, while maintaining continuity throughout the building and landscape. The seams promote a greater understanding of the project’s scale. They emphasize the continual transformation and implied motion of its fluid geometry, offering a pragmatic solution to practical construction issues such as manufacturing, handling, transportation and assembly; and answering technical concerns such as accommodating movement due to deflection, external loads, temperature change, seismic activity and wind loading.

Photographer: Iwan Baan

To emphasize the continuous relationship between the building’s exterior and interior, the lighting design strategy differentiates the day and night reading of the building. During the day, the building’s volume reflects light, constantly altering the Centre’s appearance according to the time of day and viewing perspective. The use of semi-reflective glass gives tantalizing glimpses within, arousing curiosity without revealing the fluid trajectory of spaces inside. At night, this character is gradually transformed by means of lighting that washes from the interior onto the exterior surfaces, unfolding the formal composition to reveal its content and maintaining the fluidity between interior and exterior.

For in-depth details on the space frame, architectural skin, assembly and the like, enlighten yourself at http://www.zaha-hadid.com