Daily Celestial Challenge Wednesday- Structures

Heydar Aliyev Center / Zaha Hadid Architects

Zaha Hadid is an enormously controversial architect who for many years did not manage to carry out her constructions, despite the prizes and good reviews that her projects received. However, in the last decade his fame has been catapulted and he has completed numerous projects, such as the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, the Zaragoza Bridge Pavilion and the MAXXI Museum in Rome. Currently, it is firmly established among the elite of architecture thanks to its bold and futuristic projects.

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The design of the Heydar Aliyev Center establishes a continuous and fluid relationship between its surrounding plaza and the interior of the building. The square, like the surface of the ground, within everyone's reach as part of the urban fabric of Baku, rises to envelop an equally public interior space and define a sequence of spaces for events dedicated to the collective celebration of contemporary and traditional Azeri culture . Elaborating formations such as undulations, bifurcations, folds and inflections, modifies this surface of the square in an architectural landscape that carries out a multitude of functions: the welcome, the shelter, and the direction to the visitors through different levels of the interior . With this gesture, the building diffuses the conventional distinction between architectural object and the urban landscape, building an envelope and an urban plaza, as a figure and a background, interior and exterior.

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Fluency in architecture is not new in this region. In historical Islamic architecture, rows, grids, or sequences of columns to infinity like trees in a forest, establish a non-hierarchical space. Continuous calligraphic and ornamental flow patterns, from the carpets to the walls, from the walls to the ceilings, from the ceilings to the vaults, establishing seamless relationships and erasing the distinctions between the architectural elements and the land where they live. Our intention was to refer to the understanding of the history of architecture, not through the use of mimicry or limiting adherence to the iconography of the past, but rather through the development of a contemporary interpretation with firmness, reflecting a more nuanced understanding. In response to the steep drop topography that formerly divided the site in two, the project presents a landscape of precise terraces that establish connections and alternative routes between the public square, the construction, and an underground parking lot. This solution avoids digging and additional filling, and successfully converts an initial site disadvantage into a key design feature.

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One of the most critical and challenging elements of the project was the development of the building's skin architecture. To achieve our ambition to achieve a continuous surface that seems homogeneous, a wide range of different functions, construction logics and technical systems that had to be assembled and integrated into the roof of the building are required. Advanced computing allowed continuous control and communication of these complexities among the numerous participants in the project.

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