State Carpet Museum, Baku (must see)

The State Carpet Museum, established in 1967 on the initiative of prominent carpet scholar and artist Latif Karimov, is devoted to preserving and presenting Azerbaijan’s long tradition of carpet weaving. Although the museum was founded in 1967, its first permanent exhibition opened in 1972 in the Juma Mosque in Baku’s Old City.

In 1992, the museum moved to the second floor of the Baku Museum Center, a building that had previously housed the Lenin Museum. As the collection continued to grow, a purpose-built museum was planned for the seafront. The present building opened in 2014 and was designed by Austrian architect Franz Janz to resemble a rolled carpet, making the museum itself one of Baku’s most recognizable modern landmarks.

The State Carpet Museum holds the world’s largest collection of Azerbaijani carpets, with thousands of examples representing different regional traditions, weaving techniques, patterns, and materials. The displays include both pile and pileless carpets, as well as ceramics, jewelry, traditional clothing, embroidery, metalwork, and other forms of decorative art.

Visitors can also learn how carpets were used in everyday life and ceremonies, and how particular colors, motifs, and designs reflected local traditions and beliefs. Live weaving demonstrations help explain techniques that have been passed from one generation to another. Traditional Azerbaijani carpet weaving was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.

A section of the museum is devoted to Latif Karimov, whose research helped classify and document the different schools and traditions of Azerbaijani carpet making. Along with displaying finished works, the museum therefore presents carpet weaving as a living craft closely connected with Azerbaijan’s history, family traditions, and cultural identity.