MUSEUMS
Here are the city’s six best contemporary art galleries and museums not to miss
Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital, houses more than 30 museums covering everything from history and ethnography to a collection of tiny books. Take advantage of the museums in Baku to appreciate its fascinating story and culture and come away with a more enhanced travel experience.
AZERBAIJAN CARPET MUSEUM
Gorgeous colors, patterns and textures – beautiful Azerbaijani carpets
The Azerbaijan Carpet Museum was created in 1967. The museum’s new home was built within the National Seaside Park and opened its doors in 2014. As well as being brilliantly photogenic, the museum, designed in the form of a huge folded carpet, also houses ceramics, 14th-century metal work, bronze-age jewellery and a permanent collection of 600 carpets from the Shusha Museum of History.
Inside, there are 3 levels of displayed carpets, divided by workmanship on hand woven and knotted. This museum is a must see for whoever is interested to know about the process of producing a handmade carpet and enjoys to have a look at the colourful carpets.
OPENING HOURS: Tuesday - Friday: 10:00-18:00
Saturday - Sunday: 10:00-20:00
Closed on Mondays
HEYDAR ALIYEV CENTER
A palace of light and white
It’s fitting that the “City of Winds” would have a building like the Heydar Aliyev Center as its new cultural and geographic heart. All swooping curves and flowing space, this 619,000-square-foot complex designed by Zaha Hadid won the London Design Museum award in 2014.
Zaha Hadid’s white-on-white masterpiece leaves most first time visitors speechless. It looks as though a dazzling intergalactic space station has decided to land in a Baku park, and is a sight you won’t rapidly forget. The softly folded roof shelters a museum, an auditorium and a multi-purpose hall.
OPENING HOURS: Tuesday - Friday: 11:00 - 19:00
Saturday - Sunday: 11:00 – 18:00
Closed on Mondays
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF HISTORY OF AZERBAIJAN
If you are interested in museums, this is a must see one
The Azerbaijan National Museum of History is one of these pearls, dating back to the 19 century. This largest museum in Azerbaijan, built in 1895-1896, was originally the private residence of Haji Zeynalabdin Taghiyev, who was the famous national oil baron remembered for his generous philanthropy.
The Italian Renaissance-style mansion is immense and takes up an entire city block. The museum contains two floors. On the first floor you get familiar with the Azerbaijan history from the Paleolithic age to after emerging Islam. On the second floor of Taghiyev's residence, there are two major ballrooms side by side. One is based on Oriental designs [Mauritanian] and the other, on Occidental designs. The Oriental Room has enormous plate glass windows, gilded arches, highly ornamental walls, ceilings and chandeliers.
OPENING HOURS: Tuesday - Sunday: 10:00-18:00
Closed on Mondays
SHIRVANSHAH'S PALACE
The Pearl of BaKu
The palace was the former residence of the rulers of the Shirvanshahs. It is a complex where, in addition to the palace itself, can also be found a courtyard of the Diwankhana, the courthouse, the Shirvanshahs’ burial vault, the palace mosque of 1441 with its minaret, the bathhouse and the mausoleum of the court scholar, Sayid Yahya Bakuvi. The palace complex was built in the period from the XIII to the XVI century. On the palace itself, no inscriptions have survived. Therefore, the time of its construction is determined by the dates on the inscriptions on various architectural monuments, which relate to the palace complex. In 1964, the palace complex was declared a museum-preserve. In 2000, a unique architectural and cultural ensemble, along with the fortified walls enclosed by the historic part of the city and the Maiden Tower, was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The Shirvanshahs Palace is considered one of the pearls of the architecture of Azerbaijan.
Opening Hours: Everyday from 10:00 to 18:00
MAIDEN TOWER
One of the most iconic images of Baku surely has to be the Qiz Qalasi, known in English as Maiden's Tower. This is a unique 8-floor structure with majestic 4-5 meter thick walls built on a rocky promontory overlooking the Caspian Sea from the southern edge of Baku´s old, walled city, the Icheri Sheher. Maiden Tower has been included into UNESCO’s World Heritage List.
The origins of the tower are shrouded in mystery - no-one knows for certain when it was built or what it was built for or even how it acquired its name Qiz Qalasi. Interesting legends revolve around this tower like that of the king who loved his beautiful maiden daughter and wanted to marry her. The maiden told him to build the highest tower for her to delay the wedding. After it was completed she jumped from it. The tower currently has a museum and a gift shop.
Opening Hours: Everyday from 10:00 to 18:00
MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Breathing life back into art
The Museum of Contemporary Art in Baku was opened on March 20, 2009. The museum has an outstanding contemporary collection of over 800 works by Azerbaijani and European artists and sculptors, mostly working in the avant-garde style. There is no fixed subject area in the Museum, no imposed routes. Any of two points, two exhibits, and two segments of the Museum are interconnected. The idea of architectural concept of the Museum – the halls with no corner, open passages, inclined walls under various angle – allows to create multidimensional perspective view of pictures, there is a semblance of motion, and metal beams and designs placed all over the space unite all the parts into a single "moving abstract structure.” There are no confined spaces in the Museum. A two-storey building is designed as a whole with an architectural linking device – an art-object of “forgotten staircase”. The author of the Museum concept, architecture and design, the collection and exposition selection is the artist Altay Sadikh-zadeh.
Opening Hours: Tuesday - Sunday: 11:00-20:00
Closed on Mondays