Azerbaijan Carpet Museum

About Azerbaijan Carpet Museum

Art museum

The Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum was the first museum in the world devoted to the art of the carpet and holds the largest collection of Azerbaijani carpets anywhere, including very rare and valuable pieces. It first opened on Neftchiler Avenue in 1967 and moved in 2014 to a new building on Baku Boulevard beside the Caspian shore, a striking structure designed by the Austrian architect Franz Janz in the form of a rolled carpet that has itself become a landmark of the seafront. The museum displays Azerbaijani carpets and rugs with their historical and modern weaving techniques and materials, arranged by the country's great weaving schools such as Quba, Shirvan, Ganja, Gazakh, Karabakh and Tabriz, from flat-woven kilims and sumakhs to pile carpets, alongside textiles and traditional costume, copperware, jewellery and the tools once used for weaving and dyeing. Live weaving demonstrations are held in the museum, and the traditional art of Azerbaijani carpet weaving was inscribed on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural heritage in 2010. It is one of the best introductions to Azerbaijani culture and combines easily with a stroll along the Boulevard and the neighbouring Old City.

Where:

Baku, Azerbaijan