Category: Architecture

  • VIDEO: Zaha Hadid announced as winner to design new art and culture center in Amman

    Zaha Hadid was officially announced as the final winner of the long standing competition to design the King Abdullah II House for Art and culture in Amman. Mayor Omar Maani made the announcement in a special ceremony held a couple of days ago where he hosted Hadid and a group of dignitaries, cultural officials and…

  • A Lebanese man walks in Amman..

    This might sound like the the first line of a joke waiting for a punch line. But this Lebanese man is not the star of a funny joke but the writer Hazem Amin, who one evening found himself as “Amman’s only pedestrian, stumbling over its sidewalks“. That’s the title of his article in Al-Ghad today…

  • My Amman: re-discovering, re-engaging, re-connecting our city

    My Amman View more documents from SYNTAX. I had the pleasure of being invited by Jordanian social entrepreneur (and self proclaimed “doctor of companies, governments and peoples”) Maher Kaddoura, to give a talk about ‘My Amman’ at the pilot of NewThink, an initiative to spread a culture of positive action, a can-do attitude and entrepreneurship…

  • Navigating Amman: Hands on with Nokia’s Jordan GPS maps!

    Finally! I’ve been covering developments in getting Amman and Jordan mapped electronically for a few years now, at one point even suggesting that we as users just do it ourselves! This whole GPS maps and navigation business in Jordan was being held up for over a year by what seems to be regulations hurdles, combined…

  • Amman’s most colorful day: a city no longer ashamed of itself!

    For the past two years, the subject of Amman has been unavoidable for me. Not only do I live in this city, but I’ve also been, with my company SYNTAX, involved in the first big branding effort this city has undertaken. I am overdosed on Amman! The branding project has been completed but writing about…

  • Experience Amman and its story: the most comprehensive city history site ever

    It’s been a long time in the making, but now its here. Never before has Amman’s story been presented to its citizens and guest so vividly and comprehensively. It’s still a work in progress that Ammanis and their guest will complete in the coming months and years. I am talking about the Amman Centennial website,…

  • Spotted: A neat prototype of Amman’s new bus shelters

    A couple of weeks ago, as I was driving up from Ras AL Ein to the the 3rd Circle, I noticed something interesting on the street. Apparently this is the first prototype of Amman’s new bus shelters. I stopped the car, then waited (quite a bit) for the two ladies sitting there to get on…

  • Amman’s public transport development: will we seize the moment?

    Will we be riding a modern metro and bus system that takes us across Amman with comfort and ease? Any serious discussion about Amman and its problems is bound to hit upon the issue of transport. Wether we’re complaining about the increasing occurrence of traffic jams, how Amman has turned into a car city, how…

  • 360east 24HRS Abu Dhabi

  • Imagining The Dubai-ification of Baghdad

    Monocle’s Tyler Brule shares a thought on the Invest Iraq conference held in London a couple of days ago: FT.com / Columnists / Tyler Brûlé – Between Iraq and a marketplace: I couldn’t see any indication of where the Iraqi leadership was heading next, but I imagine their global tour has quite a bit to…

  • Mayor Omar Maani comments on 360east regarding the Sanaya Amman skyscraper ads

    My post about the Sanaya Amman advertising campaign, has attracted the attention of Mayor Omar Maani himself. Commenting on that post he wrote: I must agree the adverts look like the towers are touching the heavens when no other building dared do this. Although more than sixty stories in height, I assure all that it…

  • Domus Arabia magazine launched, Jordanians all over its pages!

    An Arabic edition of the the famous Italian Arachitecture and Design journal “Domus”. Now that’s interesting. My first encounter with Domus was during the days of my architectural studies in the early 1990’s. So it was a really pleasant surprise when I saw the first issue of Domus in Arabic on a newsstand in Abu…