Hadid last year developed a preliminary design for the Heydar Aliyev Cultural Center for Baku, which includes a congress center, a museum, a library and a 9-hectare park. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev acted as the customer.
The British press criticized Hadid's "ethical position", as she allegedly supports the personality cult of Heydar Aliyev, who for a long time led the KGB of the Azerbaijan SSR, and also served as deputy chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers. In 1993, he was elected president of independent Azerbaijan, and after his death in 2003, his son replaced him as head of the republic. International human rights organizations in their reports pointed to numerous cases of human rights violations in Azerbaijan both under Heydar Aliyev and in recent years.
The discussion in the British press was continued by British architects, who drew attention to the existing double standard: in the media they are criticized for their work in China, Russia, Azerbaijan, but they are not supported when they oppose the repressive actions of the Israeli government against the population of the Palestinian territories. This is an open letter signed in 2006 by many architects of the United Kingdom (including Will Alsop, Charles Jencks, Edward Cullinan, Terry Farrell) to Israeli architects urging them not to engage in projects for the expansion of Israeli settlements in Arab territory. Then the journalists were skeptical about this initiative.
The Heydar Aliyev Center is not the first experience of working in Azerbaijan for Zaha Hadid: in early 2007 she was commissioned to develop a project of a 225-meter skyscraper for the state oil company Socar in Baku. At the same time, Thomas Hezerwick began to work on the design of the "Peace Monument" - also for the Azerbaijani capital.
