Flame Towers
HOK · Baku, Azerbaijan · 2013
Flame Towers are a trio of high-rise volumes shaped as tapering curved forms above central Baku. HOK’s design uses the association with flames—an important symbol in Azerbaijani cultural identity—to create a skyline composition containing hotel, residential and office functions. Extensive LED façades turn the towers into a large nighttime media display visible across the bay and historic center. Completed and occupied in the early 2010s, the complex has become the dominant image of contemporary Baku’s rapid transformation and of architecture used as urban branding at metropolitan scale.