The book Zaha Hadid. Heydar Aliyev Centre is devoted to the new cultural center designed by Zaha Hadid in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku. As one of the most important cultural centers in the country, the building houses a variety of institutions under one roof. With the design, the renowned architect won the architecture competition in 2007. Inside its surface of fiberglass-reinforced concrete the building contains an auditorium that seats over a thousand, a conference center, a museum, and a library. Its open, inviting, and curvilinear design, which picks up and expands on forms from the surrounding environment, strongly differentiates the building from the city’s monumental architecture of the Soviet era.

Photographs by Hélène Binet and Iwan Baan display the building in all of its facets, making it possible for the reader to experience its formal, haptic, and spatial qualities. Essays explain conceptual and technical aspects of this impressive piece of architecture.

The book Zaha Hadid. Heydar Aliyev Centre is devoted to the new cultural center designed by Zaha Hadid in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku. As one of the most important cultural centers in the country, the building houses a variety of institutions under one roof. With the design, the renowned architect won the architecture competition in 2007. Inside its surface of fiberglass-reinforced concrete the building contains an auditorium that seats over a thousand, a conference center, a museum, and a library. Its open, inviting, and curvilinear design, which picks up and expands on forms from the surrounding environment, strongly differentiates the building from the city’s monumental architecture of the Soviet era.

Photographs by Hélène Binet and Iwan Baan display the building in all of its facets, making it possible for the reader to experience its formal, haptic, and spatial qualities. Essays explain conceptual and technical aspects of this impressive piece of architecture.


Zaha Hadid, born in 1950 in Baghdad, is one of the most influential architects of our time. Her international breakthrough came with the Vitra Fire Station in Weil am Rhein. Among her most recent buildings are the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, the MAXXI Museum of Art in Rome, and the Guangzhou Opera House. She was the first woman to win the Pritzker Prize (2004). Hadid lives and works in London.