On the eastern side of the Ajlun mountains, Amman is a hilly city through which a small river, Wadi ‘Amman, once ran. Settlements have existed on the plateau since at least 3000 BCE. The Islamic history of the city begins when the city was taken by the forces of the general Yazīd ibn Abī Sufyān in 635, but it declined in importance, and by 1300 had nearly disappeared.
The Ottoman resettled the site with Circassian refugees from Russia in 1878, but I wasn’t until becoming the capital of Jordan after World War II that the city really began to grow.
This project is part of a wider masterplan to make Amman more pedestrian friendly and provide more public spaces. Rainbow Street was an active mixed-use neighbourhood in the 1980s and the project has fostered its already nascent revival with a minimal intervention to enhance its existing qualities. A 1.5-kilometre pedestrian promenade now runs along the street, punctuated by eight urban nodes, ranging from public gardens to a panoramic lookout on the roof of an old house. Signage, traffic solutions and street furniture have also been addressed. The result has done much to encourage social inclusiveness in the area and create a vibrant public life.