The Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center is a cultural complex currently being constructed in Baku, Azerbaijan. The complex will include a 21,000sq m conference hall rising to a height of 22m, a museum, library and sculpted parkland. The Cultural Center will house a conference hall with 3 auditoriums, a library and a museum. The site neighbouring the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center is designated for residential, offices, a hotel and commercial center, whilst the land between the Cultural Center and the city’s main thoroughfare will become the Cultural Plaza – an outdoor piazza for the Cultural Center as well as a welcoming space for the visitors.

The proposal for the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center envisions a fluid form which emerges by the folding of the landscape’s natural topography and by the wrapping of individual functions of the Center. All functions of the Center, together with entrances, are represented by folds in a single continuous surface. This fluid form gives an opportunity to connect the various cultural spaces whilst, at the same time, providing each element of the Center with its own identity and privacy. As it folds inside, the skin erodes away to become an element of the interior landscape of the Cultural Center.