The Hangar Exhibition
In the 1980s, a new monumentality was being constructed through the signifiers of the "belated" modernity of Amman. This monumentality emphasized a specific national identity using a postmodern language.
This can be read in the symbolic features of the inaugural ‘version’ of the Hashemite Plaza (1986), whether in echoing the Greco-Roman volume or in the fountain – which was later replaced by a clock tower – that marked the final disappearance of the stream of water, el Seil.
In her spatial installation, titled ‘Saha’, architect and urban researcher Saba Innab uses claustra blocks to create a constellation constructed through the spatial and symbolic definers of the Hashemite Plaza; the Amphitheater, the arcades of Saqf el Seil Street (Quraysh St.), and the invisible body of water.
The body of the plaza itself becomes absent as it dissolves in its surroundings and the competing representations of publics. It is a space that seems to be continually built as a ruin that will soon be reshaped, abandoned or replaced by another in an endless process of building an official image, lingering between the obsolete and restlessness.