Yesterday, Saturday, I decided to finally start my ‘project’ of documenting the old shop and office signs of downtown Amman.

I parked my car at the top end of a staircase leading down from Jabal Amman to Basman street. I started taking some pictures, then my camera’s battery died. I bought a pack of batteries from a small photographic shop and headed toward King Faisal street.

As I looked up to the upper floors of the buildings, I had a strange feeling. They looked to clean. It took around five minutes to realize what happened. I am too late with my project!

I feeling of sadness and helplessness overcame me as I realized what happened. The Amman’s municipality’s cleanup project has already reached downtown. Almost all the signs of the upper floor are gone.

I had conflicted feelings as I looked for remaining signs to photograph. On one hand I am all for the signage cleanup of Amman. But in downtown Amman, the cleanup has wiped out a layer of history that went undocumented.

What I missed the most were those sign of doctors and layers. As I looked for them I noticed that a lot of the upper floors of downtown are actually abandoned. It’s totally sad.

The names of the lawyers, doctors and trader used to provide an insight into the civic and commercial life of Amman in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and even 70’s. I am happy to have found I few examples still hanging on the facades.

The framed tin rectangles with their simple, elegant lettering and their slightly inclined installation (to make them more visible to the street level, have an amazing dignity to them that today’s signage rarely matches.

I am not a nostalgic nor a conservative person. But looking at the urban structures and old signage of downtown Amman made me think. It seems that the strict rules of building, lettering and sign-making of the mid 20th century have produced an urban environment that makes a ‘modern’ shopping district like Suweifieh seem like an atrocity.

I asked one of the shopkeeper about what happened to the signs. He gave me an account of how the Greater Amman Municipality has strictly enforced its new regulations. He also gave me a few hints on where I might be able to find those old signs. I will update you later if I succeed in tracking any of them down, although I think the chances are slim.

I will definitely take another tour through downtown soon. I am paying attention to the names of the sign-makers on the signs I am photographing. For now, I am just taking pictures. But I am noticing names like ‘Abed Joukhi’, ‘Sabanekh’ and ‘Hassan’ recurring on various signs.

A real documentation would note the exact places where these signs are found. I should also be taking to people to know the dates of the signs. IBut I don’t think I will be able to do that.

Downtown Amman is an urban gem. It is an amazing urban environment. It is not Damascus, not Jerusalem and not Cairo. And that precisely why it is unique. It tells the story of an Arab city which was reborn in the 20th century as the ancient Ottoman empire faded and the modern Arab state was born. The bilingual signs are a reflection of both the heritage of the British mandate but also a certain openness to the world. The old traces of modern shopping sit side by side with traditional publishing houses that used to print Islamic books. The architecture is transitional: from Ottoman Levantine to modern.

As I walked I realized that it would be very wrong to turn downtown into a cleaned up tourist attraction. Yes, it needs to be cleaned up. And yes it needs to regain some dignity after the sons of its founders abandoned it to Jabal Amman, Shmeisani and Abdoun. But any future development of downtown Amman should be careful to retain its authenticity as an amazing mix of influences and cultures.

One tough lesson I learned today. Never ever postpone documenting aging things: people, buildings, signs. You never know when you will loose them for good.

I leave you with some photos here, followed by a link to a Flickr set that contains most of the photos I shot.

The best shot of the tour: Debbas store

Just look at the visual inventiveness of this sign: Ashoury Shoes.

Thank goodness I still found some of these simple, elegant doctor’s clinics signs..

Falling behind a modern Zain sign.. Sad.

Removed signs and andoned rooms

King Faisal Street in 1970. From Natasha’s Mental Mayhem blog

One really can’t help but support a signage clean up in Amman. Above and below are pictures I took in 2000 of downtown Amman. Sadly I only photographed the horrible examples and ignored the signs that needed documenting.

And here is the the set of photos I took yesterday. Some of them have captions if you are interested..

Read these related posts on 360east:

• When did Amman’s shop signs loose their beautiful lettering
• Abdoun Circle: Not even buildings by star architects are safe from ugly signs!
• Amman’s new bus stop signs: are they any good?
• Discovering Doha: A slide show..
• Color on a wall: Amman’s biggest painting..