Carpet Museum

Tour Type

CULTURAL

Group Size

No limit

Tour Guide

1 Mentor

BAKU

Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum was established in accordance with the decree No. 130 of the Council of Ministers of the Azerbaijan SSR dated March 13, 1967. From 1967 to 1993, the museum was called the Azerbaijan State Museum of Carpet and Folk Applied Arts, from 1993 to 2014 – State Museum of Carpet and Applied Arts named after Latif Karimov, from 2014 to 2019 – Azerbaijan Carpet Museum, and from 2019 to the present – Azerbaijan National Carpet Museum.

At the time of establishing, it was the only museum that was dedicated to the art of carpet weaving. The main purpose of the museum’s creation was to store, research, and demonstrate unique examples of the carpet weaving art, which are Azerbaijan’s national heritage. The initiator of the museum was Latif Karimov, the outstanding scientist and carpet weaver, founder of the science of Azerbaijan Carpet Art, artist and teacher, author of the fundamental work Azerbaijani Carpet.

The first permanent exhibition was presented on April 26, 1972, in the building of the Juma Mosque, an architectural monument of the 19th century, located in Icherisheher (Old City). The national leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev, who provided great support to the museum from the first days of its establishment, took part at the opening ceremony. In 1970–1980s, with the constant help of the country’s leadership in the person of Heydar Aliyev, Museum had regular opportunities to purchase crafts and thereby replenish its collections. In those years, masterpieces of Azerbaijani Carpet Weaving Art were purchased for the museum.

In 1992, the State Museum of Carpet and Applied Arts was moved to the Museum Center (former Lenin Museum), located at the Neftchilar Avenue. In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to the presidential decree, the building was given to the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan and renamed to Museum Center. The museum exhibition, representing the carpet samples from different regions of Azerbaijan, as well as works of other kinds of applied arts, was located in thirteen spacious rooms on the second floor.

In 2007, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed a decree for the creation of a new building for the museum in the territory of Seaside National Park within the framework of a joint project of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, and UNESCO. In 2014, under the direction of Austrian architect Franz Janz, the museum building, which meets all modern requirements, was completed. Over the years, the museum is continuously developed and has become one of the main storage of samples of the Azerbaijan national culture.