London Design Museum awards Heydar Aliyev Center designer
By Nigar Orujova
Artist Dame Zaha Hadid's Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan, has won the Design Museum Design of the Year Award.
Vice President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva attended the award-giving ceremony in London.
Addressing the event, Zaha Hadid expressed her gratitude for the implementation of such an original project in Baku to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva.
"We're absolutely delighted to receive the Design of the Year Award. The surface of the Heydar Aliyev Centre's external plaza rises and folds to define a sequence of public event spaces within; welcoming, embracing and directing visitors throughout the building. It's an architectural landscape where concepts of seamless spatial flow are made real - creating a whole new kind of civic space for the city," she said.
Other nominated architecture projects included: NLE Architects' Makoko Floating School, The Turbulences FRAC Centre by Jakob + Macfarlane Architects, and the interior remodeling of the St. Moritz Church by John Pawson.
The overall winner was chosen by a panel of experts from more than 70 nominated designs in the categories of architecture, digital, fashion, furniture, graphics, product and transport.
The judges also chose winners in the other six categories. Winners included Prada for the Fashion Award and Volkswagen for Transport.
Zaha Hadid, a renowned architect and the first woman who has won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, became the first woman to win Designs of the Year Award 2014. Hadid's buildings are characterized by distinctive futurism, powerful and curving lines, multiple perspective points, and fragmented geometry.
The Design Museum, one of the most respected organizations in the field of contemporary design and architecture, named the Heydar Aliyev Center the winner of the "Architecture" prize in April.
The overall shape of the Heydar Aliyev Center, which opened in Azerbaijan's capital on May 10, 2012, resembles a wave-like ascension from the ground towards the sky followed by a gradual descent towards the ground.
Its shape is not only a tribute to post-modern architecture, but also a portrayal of an eternal cycle. The lines on the building connect the past to the present.
The harmonious link between the exterior and the interior aspires to remove any boundaries in the building's perception regarding the fact that it's meant to be open to anyone irrespective of gender, race, and origin by bringing people together and uniting them by shared ideas.