Our Parametricism series continues with a look at the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku , Azerbaijan, by Zaha Hadid , the project that the architect claimed was the "closest thing" to translating her theoretical visions into a built reality.

Completed by Zaha Hadid Architects in 2012, the 57,000-square-metre centre contains a 1,000-seat auditorium alongside exhibition and conference spaces, all enveloped by a flowing roof designed to appear as a seamless extension of the surrounding plaza.

The Heydar Aliyev Centre is one of the clearest examples of parametricism

The Heydar Aliyev Centre's futuristic form saw it become a poster project for the emergent style of parametricism, coined in 2008 by Patrik Schumacher – then a partner and today principal at Zaha Hadid Architects.

It represented an era in which Hadid's rapidly growing studio cast off its reputation for "unbuildable" designs, with increasingly complex forms made possible through parametric software and – in this instance – the big budgets of oil and…