Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum
Seafront museum shaped like a rolled carpet, holding more than 10,000 weavings and applied-art pieces.
Founded in 1967, this was the first museum anywhere devoted specifically to carpets. It opened in the Juma Mosque in the walled old city of Baku, a fifteenth-century building remodelled in the nineteenth century, and later occupied part of the Museum Centre on the seafront. The present home in Seaside National Park opened on 26 August 2014. Designed by the Austrian architect Franz Janz and built over some six years, the block is shaped as a partly unrolled carpet, its curving end forming the entrance front facing the Caspian.
The vault holds more than ten thousand items arranged in seven groups: pile carpets, flat weaves, textiles and costume, embroidery, metalwork, ceramics and glass, and work in wood, paper and jewellery. Pieces range from the Bronze Age to the present, with the bulk dating from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries and grouped by the historic weaving schools of Guba, Baku, Shirvan, Ganja, Gazakh, Garabagh and Tabriz. Galleries also cover dyeing and weaving technique, and there are workshops, a library and a conservation department.
Highlights
- Building by Franz Janz shaped as a partly unrolled carpet
- Over 10,000 items across seven collection groups
- Carpets grouped by the historic weaving schools of Azerbaijan
- Displays on dyeing, looms and weaving technique
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