Baku Architecture City Guide: 15 Projects Reframing Azerbaijan's Capital

ArchDaily has published a city guide to Baku, Azerbaijan, featuring 15 projects that reframe the capital's architectural identity. The guide highlights how Baku's historic core, Icherisheher, maintains a dense, enclosed spatial logic, while beyond its walls the city shifts toward large-scale, visibility-driven developments. Over the past two decades, oil wealth has fueled a deliberate construction of Baku's image, with architecture as a primary tool. Key projects include the Heydar Aliyev Center by Zaha Hadid Architects and the Flame Towers, which function as media symbols as much as urban objects. These structures introduce a logic of singularity over continuity, positioning architecture as an agent of representation. The guide explores the tension between Baku's historic fabric and its contemporary ambitions.