Azerbaijan Carpet Museum

The Azerbaijan Carpet Museum stands on Neftchilar Avenue on the Baku Boulevard waterfront in Baku, Azerbaijan, and is dedicated to the country's carpet weaving traditions. The museum was founded in 1967 and was first housed in a different building in Baku, and in 2014 it moved into its current purpose-built home, designed by the Austrian architect Franz Janz, in the shape of a partly unrolled carpet. The collection holds several thousand items, including carpets, rugs, felt pieces, embroidery, jewellery, costumes and metalwork from different periods and regions of Azerbaijan, with the oldest carpets dating to around the 17th century, and with a larger part of the holdings dating from the 18th to 20th centuries. Carpets are grouped by weaving school, including those of Quba, Shirvan, Baku, Ganja, Karabakh and Tabriz-influenced work, each distinguished by patterns, motifs and colour palettes, with natural dyes made from plants and insects. The tradition of Azerbaijani carpet weaving was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010. The three floors of the museum are arranged thematically and by region, with exhibits on weaving techniques, looms, dyeing and the symbolism of motifs, as well as examples of pile and flat-woven kilims. The curatorial approach combines display of finished pieces with explanation of the craft process, and a small workshop area is sometimes used for demonstrations by weavers. The building's exterior, with its undulating roofline and rolled shape, is part of the visit, and the upper floor provides views of the Caspian and Baku Boulevard. Care of the textiles includes controlled lighting and climate, which is why the galleries are kept dim. Photography rules vary, so visitors should check at the entrance. A shop on site sells books and reproductions.