The Riyadh Center

Notes

With the Riyadh Center, the architect was attempting to introduce in Amman the use of a more advanced technology and consequently new materials. This fourteen-story building, commissioned by Fayek Abu Khadra, is located between two parallel roads, with a large difference in elevation between them. Tukan took advantage of this problematic by putting, on the lower road level, seven stories, with a parking at the lowest story, and an entrance at both the top and bottom parts of the tower.
The façade is predominantly made of factory-made mirror glass and mullion components, which allowed for a high level of precision and speed in construction, unachievable with an otherwise onsite fabrication. This was one of the first buildings in Amman to use such an approach. The spacing of the horizontal and vertical mullions on the faceted mirror glass skin was also intentionally designed to break down the scale of the tower, so it would co-exist well with its surroundings.
 

Sources

Ali Abu Ghanimeh and Mario Pisani, Jafar Tukan: Architecture, Melfi (Potenza): Libria, 2001, p. 34-36.

James Steele, Jafar Tukan: Poetry in Stone, New York: Gulf Pacific Press, 2014, p. 34.

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