The Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku: the Zaha Hadid building with no corners

Four kilometres from the old city, on an esplanade beside the airport avenue, there is a white building that looks like a wave about to break. This is the Heydar Aliyev Center, by Zaha Hadid, opened in 2012. It has no corners, you cannot tell where the square ends and the building begins, and together with the Maiden Tower and the Flame Towers it is the third image of Baku. People come mostly to see it from outside; inside there is a museum and exhibitions worth a visit if you have time to spare.

The building

Hadid won the competition in 2007 with an idea simple to state and hard to build: that the ground of the square should lift and fold until it became the building, without a right angle. The skin is glass-fibre and polyester panels on a steel structure, and the joints are designed to read as lines running along the wave from one end to the other. In 2014 the Design Museum in London gave it Design of the Year, the first time for a building. It is also a controversial one: the name, the cost and the eviction of residents to clear the esplanade are part of its story.

What is inside

• An auditorium of about 1,000 seats for concerts, conferences and state events.
• Exhibition halls with temporary shows of art and design, often of international standard.
• A permanent exhibition on Azerbaijan, with models of the country's buildings and a carpet room.
• The museum devoted to Heydar Aliyev, president from 1993 to 2003 and father of the current one: official cars, state gifts, photographs.

How to visit

The square and the exterior are free and always open; that is where the photo is. The exhibitions charge admission, a few manats depending on the hall, and keep museum hours; check the official website before going, as it closes on some Mondays and during installations. Take the metro to Nariman Narimanov and walk ten minutes, or a taxi, a quarter of an hour from the centre. For the photo, late afternoon: the white skin takes on the colour of the sky and then lights up. From the esplanade you can see the Flame Towers in the background.

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