DETAILED STUDY ON ZAHA HADID'S MASTERPIECE IN BAKU

1. HEYDAR ALIYEV CULTURAL CENTER,
BAKU, AZERBAIJAN

2. Heydar Aliyev
Cultural Center
Architect:
Zaha Hadid Architects, Zaha
Hadid, Patrik Schumacher
Associate Architect:
Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu
Year of construction:
2007-2012
Roof Height: 74m
Length: 10,092m
Floors: 9
Built-up Area: 57.519m2
Location :Baku, Azerbaijan
INTRODUCTION
 The Heydar Aliyev Center, with 57,519 m2 built, is a
complex of buildings designed by British Iraqi
architect Zaha Hadid, noted for its architecture and fluid
curved style that avoids sharp angles.
 The center is named Heydar Aliyev, leader during the
Soviet Azerbaijan 1969-1982, and president of the
country from October 1993 to October 2003.
 The Heydar Aliyev Center, an internationally recognized
architectural work, has become a benchmark in the
modern Baku, due to its innovative and cutting edge
design.
 The building was nominated for the World Architecture
Festival and Inside Biennial Festival in 2013.

3. LOCATION
 Located near the city center, the site has a fundamental
role in the redevelopment of Baku, Azerbaijan Republic,
on the west coast of the Caspian Sea. To access the center
has planned a new subway line that leaves the visitor at
the foot of the small hill on which the building sits.
 The spaces surrounding the Cultural Center of Heydar
Aliyev were approbed for residential, offices, a hotel and
a shopping mall, while the ground between the cultural
center and the main artery of the city became the
Cultural Plaza, a space open for public use.

5. CONCEPT
 The structure accompanying Hadid variations within the unit.
 With a continuous self- processing design in all directions, there is little
sense of limits, and no indication of completion is an immersion in a
bath of space.
 The immateriality of a building varies between white, whiter and even
whiter depending on the incidence of the sun on their surfaces, give a
weightless character, releasing gravitational visitors obligations.
 As an object, the building is subjective, causing strong feelings
triggered by the suspension of physical gravity .
 An agile spatial structure of two layers, is the main support of the
double jacket which are smoothly curved along the top and bottom of
the outer casing, the structural frame and concealing emphasizing the
surface rather structure , as if the building was all effect and not cause.

6.  Represents a fluid form that emerges by the folding of the
natural topography of the landscape and the wrapping of
individual functions within.
 All features, together with the inputs are represented by
folds in one continuous outer surface.
 Fluidly connecting the various cultural spaces and at the
same time, provide each member of the Centre its own
identity and privacy.
 Following the inner folds, skin erodes to become an
element of the interior landscape of the Centre.
 The shapes of the 57,519 m2 cultural center show the
lightness of a scarf billowing in freefall.
 The center is designed to become the main building of
cultural programs.

8. SPACES
 Baku complex actually consists of three buildings, a conference center with
auditorium and halls, a museum and a library, connected via an interior
space and the curve and "fluid" outer skin that winds throughout the
structure.
 The complex also houses a restaurant and a parking.
Exterior access
 visitors find the building through a long and steep park with a zigzag path,
leading to a square paved with squares of white concrete,
 The landscape emerges from the ground to blend with the building. This
area called Cultural Plaza.
 In response to plummeting to the ground above topographically divided
into two, the project has a terraced landscape that provides alternative
routes and connections between the public square, construction, and
underground parking.
 This solution avoids additional excavation and fill and successfully converts
an initial disadvantage of place in a key design feature.

10. Cultural Plaza
 The design of the Heydar Aliyev Center provides a continuous and fluid
relationship between the surrounding square and inside the building.
 The plaza, accessible to the public as part of the urban fabric of Baku rises
to wrap an equally public interior space and define a sequence of event
spaces dedicated to collective celebration of both contemporary and
traditional Azeri culture.
 Extrapolated the fluid forms the center environment creating a series of
terraces interlaced with mirrors, waterfalls, ripples, bifurcations, folds and
flexures that turn the surface of the square in an architectural landscape
that fulfills many functions, welcoming and directing visitors through
different levels to the inside.
 With this gesture, the building blurs the conventional distinction between
object and architectural cityscape, building envelope and urban square,
figure and ground, inside and outside.
 A cut of the barrel at the front of the housing carries the glass doors that
open to a corridor of whiteness.

12. Interior
 The inside center is characterized by
continuous surfaces that twist to
transform the ceiling walls and ramps.
 The ground floor has several spaces
lobbying aimed at creating public
places that unite the different aspects
of the program of the center.
 From these rooms welcome inside the
building continues the theme of the
merger, with continuous surfaces.
 Soils become ramps and walls, turning
on ceiling ceilings, then keep turning
and moving out of sight, forming
endless white landscapes.

13. Library
 The Library is oriented north to take advantage of natural
light and has its own entrance.
 Levels dedicated to reading and file are stacked one above the
other, wrapped in the folds of the outer skin.
 Plants tumble over one another with ramps which connect,
creating a continuous circulation path.
 The Library and Museum are also connected by a ramp that
leads through the ground floor of the Library, to the first floor
of the Museum.
 The Library is connected to the conference room through a
bridge that 'fly' over the entrance hall.
 Its shape reaches the Cultural Plaza, leaning to create the
necessary slope leading to the seats of outdoor space.

15. Auditorium
 The auditorium and its associated facilities have
direct access to the Plaza.
 The main entrance is on the void created in the outer
layer, "stretching" of the volume of the museum and
the library tower.
 The secondary entrance is on the north side of the
building.

17. STRUCTURE
 The building consists of two main systems that
collaborate: concrete structure combined with a system
of spatial structure.
 large-scale columns allow visitors to experience the
fluidity of the interior, vertical structural elements are
absorbed by the walls and curtain wall system.
 The special geometry of surfaces promotes
unconventional structural solutions, such as the
introduction of curves "Boot columns" for reverse shell
from the ground surface to the west of the building, and
the "duck tail" resulting from the narrowing of the
cantilever beams that support the skin of the building on
the east side.

19.  The space frame system allows the construction of a free
form structure and saves time during the construction
process, while the substructure has been developed to
incorporate a flexible connection between rigid grid of
the spatial structure and sheathing seams freely.
 These seams were obtained from a process of
rationalization of the complex geometry, use, and
aesthetics of the project.
 The glass fiber reinforced concrete and fiberglass
reinforced polyester were chosen as materials ideal
coating, allowing the powerful plasticity building design
while responding to very different functional
requirements related to a variety of situations: square,
transition zones and sheath.

22. Materials
 The building, whose distorted grid panels soft polyester
reinforced fiberglass has no visible connections, is less
"as built" and more like "if landed".
 The construction has been used 121,000 m3 of reinforced
concrete, 194,000tn formwork and 19.000tn mold steel.
 To shape the outer skin 5,500 tons of structural steel
were needed, creating the 40,000 m2 basis area for
panels made from fiberglass reinforced polyester or with
concrete, a total of almost 17,000 individual panels with
different geometries.

23. Lighting
 To emphasize the ongoing relationship between the
exterior and interior of the building, lighting Heydar
Aliyv Center has been carefully considered.
 During the day the volume reflects light, constantly
changing its appearance depending on the time and
perspective.
 The use of semi- reflective glass hints at undisclosed
inside space trajectory .
 At night, the building is gradually transformed by the
light that flows from within, the formal composition to
reveal its contents and continue to maintain the fluidity
between interior and exterior develops.

24. GROUND
FLOOR
FIRST
FLOOR
SECOND
FLOOR

26. THIRD
FLOOR
FOURTH
FLOOR
FIFTH
FLOOR

28. SIXTH
FLOOR
SEVENTH
FLOOR
EIGHTH
FLOOR

30. ELEVATION

31. SECTION

32. SECTION

33. SECTION

34. SECTION

35. SECTION

36. SECTIONAL VIEW

37. THANK YOU