Amman is a fast-growing city entirely made up of buildings in local natural stone: not only the well-off neighbourhoods but also poorer districts, and not only homes but also offices, hotels, museums and shops.

The Dutch embassy project concerns the renovation of an understated villa within a walled garden. The building was renovated and extended because it was too small, and not earthquake-proof. Hospitality in combination with security formed the essence of the design brief. The entrances and the various consulate functions are situated on the ground floor in the original building layer, while a separate new structure above this houses the more representative section of the embassy.
Photography Pieter Kers
The building as a whole is given a unified character by a light-filtering portico made of local Jerusalem Stone. This framework emphasizes the relation with the garden and shades the building from the heat of the sun, so the embassy staff can enjoy the attractive views of the garden without the discomfort of excessive heat. Intended to express both hospitality and security, the portico rising above the enclosure wall forms the new public face of the embassy. As symbolic as the Acropolis in Athens, or modern interpretations of the temple and agora such as Oscar Niemeyer?s Mondadori building in Milan, but now expressed in the structural vocabulary of Amman: classic modern architecture as a new and contemporary image, adapted to the local context of building traditions an...