Having reduced every Armenian monument to dust in indigenous Armenian regions, Azerbaijan’s authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev has now hired a world-known artist to design a center in honor of his father, former Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev. Both Aliyevs are believed to have ordered the destruction of the world’s largest medieval Armenian cemetery that was finalized in 2005.

According to the Scotsman:

AZERBAIJAN’S ruling elite has grown rich from oil and now it is to acquire the ultimate status symbol: a monument to the president’s father designed by one of the world’s most sought-after architects.

The Azeri government has commissioned Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi-born Briton best known for designing a cutting-edge plant for the carmaker BMW in Leipzig, to build a cultural centre in honour of Heydar Aliyev, the man who founded the ruling dynasty.

The undulating glass and aluminium structure will rise up alongside oil-blackened Soviet-era factories in the capital of a country that just a few years ago was in economic chaos and reeling from a war with its neighbour, Armenia.

It will also deepen the posthumous cult of personality around the former KGB officer who ran Azerbaijan for three decades before his death in 2003. His son, Ilham Aliyev, a reformed playboy, took over the presidency.

“This centre will be an example of respect for the legacy of Heydar Aliyev and become a symbol of Azerbaijan’s modern capital,” Ilham Aliyev said at a ceremony marking the start of work.

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