Some cities grow through continuity, others construct themselves through moments of acceleration. Baku, in Azerbaijan, seems to operate somewhere in between. Its historic core, the Icherisheher, still holds a spatial logic that resists expansion: dense, enclosed, defined by proximity and repetition. But just beyond its walls, the city begins to shift. Scale increases, distances expand, and the relationship between buildings becomes less about continuity and more about visibility.
Over the past two decades, Baku has been the site of a deliberate effort to construct an image of itself. Oil wealth provided the means, but architecture became one of its primary tools. Projects such as the Heydar Aliyev Center by Zaha Hadid Architects or the Flame Towers are symbols of this transformation, their forms designed to circulate as much through media as through the city itself. They are precise, controlled, and highly resolved objects. But they also introduce a different urban logic, one that privileges singularity over continuity and positions architecture as an agent of representation.
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