Ganja presents a lot of ancient architectural monuments that have reached us from the depth of the history. Many historical monuments have been perished irrevocably. But those which were at least partially saved, are of great historical and scientific value.

One of those is of course the Imamzadeh mausoleum, located in 7 km from center of the modern city. Around the building of Imam’s son’s mausoleum, there was a cult complex with its gate, fortress wall, a number of small mosques and several burial places.

The researchers refer the central tower part, which has a dome at its top, to the end of XIV or the beginning of XV, while extension, surrounding the center of the tomb from three sides and shaped as two-layer arcade - to XVII century.

This medieval bridge being used till now

The indicated above architectural complex is the main town-planning ensemble of Ganja. One of its main preserved elements is the building of Juma-Mosque, build in 1606 by the known scientist and architect Sheykh Baga-ud-din. The Mosque consists from a prayer hall and small official rooms, contiguous to its corners. Internal space is naturally lightened through covered by lattices Shebeke - windows, lined in two and somewhere three raws. The Mosque, constructed from the red brick, is placed in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by indistinct walls, with gates accented by vertical lines of the twin-minarets. The complex of constructions included Madrasa (school). A bath joined this Madrasa at west. At the southern side of the mosque there was a cemetery.

The architectural shape of Ganja depended on those construction and decoration materials, which were widely used here. The main material for construction of the important basic buildings was plane, square shaped, good burnt brick, while in mass habitation and in other construction the raw brick was much more usual. In decorating of buildings the limestone plates, plain stone, bricks and the relief majolica were used.

Centers of the Caravan trade and crafts production, such as Ganja, Barda, Shamkir, Beilagan, where a separate Aran school of architecture was generated, had influenced strongly the development of the Azerbaijan medieval architecture. Features of this school were characterized by the originality of mono- and polychrome piling of walls, known as the "Ganja piling", specifics of the architectural forms and other distinctive features.

The limitation of territory of the medieval Ganja by contours of fortress walls has defined the extremely high density of the city’s buildings, with characteristic narrow and curve streets.

In the planning structure of cities of feudal East the important place took Caravan-Sarais. Two-stored, rectangular caravan-sarai in Ganja, related to XVII century, has a large internal courtyard.

The preserved samples of the Ganja dwelling tradition of XVII - XVIII have dome blocking of double curvature, and also economic niches "tahcha", and wells called "raf".

Minarets of Juma Mosque can be seen from any place of the Ganja City

Divided by the small river Ganjachay, the city of Ganja, up to the beginning of XIX has precisely came apart from three parts; historical center and two regions - Bagmanlar («region of gardens») and Kilsakent («village near the church»). Down to second half of XIX, the city has saved constant medieval architectural shape. In later buildings of Ganja, the tendencies connected with dominance of Russian town-planning culture are felt. At the end of the XIX century some transformation measures had started. At the end of the XIX the shape of the city was determined by new building policy, based on building of houses in the area of former Ganja fortress, destructed in the 90-th years. Instead of the two rows of fortress wall, the «European» quarters with broad streets have appeared in the city.

And still architectural shape of today's Ganja in many respects is determined by the historical heritage, kept to us by the famous and anonymous architects of the past.