Ismailiyya building, Palace on Istiglaliyyat Street, Baku, Azerbaijan
The Ismailiyya building is a palace on Istiglaliyyat Street with a limestone facade displaying Gothic features including pointed arches, symmetrical windows, and detailed stone carvings. The vertical lines and carefully balanced proportions give the structure visual prominence on the street.
Musa Naghiyev, an oil millionaire, founded the building in 1907 in memory of his son Ismayil, who died of tuberculosis in 1902. The Polish architect Józef Płoszko prepared the design in Venice, and construction ran from 1908 to 1913. After the March 1918 events the palace was looted and burned, then restored in 1923 under architect A. Ya. Dubov, who removed the facade inscriptions.
The building's name honours Ismayil, son of oil magnate Musa Naghiyev, who died of tuberculosis in 1902. Naghiyev sent architect Józef Płoszko to Venice to study Gothic models, and the palace opened in 1913. Since 1945 it has housed the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan.
The building sits in central Baku and can be visited during regular opening hours. It helps to check conditions beforehand since it functions as an active administrative center.
The medallions on the upper facade once held Quranic verses and hadiths. During the 1920s restoration, these were removed and replaced with five-pointed golden stars, as recorded in accounts of the building's Soviet-era changes.
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