The Sexy Desert 99
It started as a conversation to impress on a walk on Rainbow Street after a long night and an Amaretto Sour; what makes Jordan’s sexiest architecture!
So, what makes architecture ‘sexy’? But before that, what does being ‘sexy’ mean? According to Psychology Today, its never the modelesque attributes, yet , and according to Scientific American, it’s the ‘dark’ personality traits that gives someone or, in my case, someplace the sex appeal. So if I want to translate this into Architecture it’s the sense of mystery and darkness that makes a designed space sexy.
Looking into Jordan’s Architecture, I would definitely argue that the vernacular desert architecture is the sexiest in Jordan. Driving through Jordan’s desert, you’d find how boring and monotonous it is. No ground cover, no ups and downs, no animals, nothing. A constant of silence that surrounds your senses from all 360 degrees. Then right on the horizon, here it appears, one bad-ass iconic building in the middle of nowhere, some desert castle or an Ammar Khammash lodge.
The usual formula of desert architecture is meant for the sole purpose of surviving the harsh dry climate of our part of the world: a thick shell with very minimal or no openings, as much inner microclimates as possible to control the temperature, sun breakers to lessen the glare and an introverted public space with greenery and water features.
In the eyes of an Arab, the most sensual is not revealed, but covered. In the Arab world, the pictures of those who are promoted for their sex appeal are usually of women fully covered with their eyes showing, even Bedouin men are usually covered in layers and layers of clothes. That’s why the secret lies in the dance between the hidden and revealed, the sense of mystery and imagination which makes what’s considered most sexy.
In the desert architecture, the contrast between the out and the in is almost to its fullest; a real mystery is created here and there. Walking in Qasr Amra from the mundane outer silence, you can almost hear the Umayyad Caliph with his giggling concubines between the cold shadows of the thick walls. Another example is Azraq eco-lodge, which I loved, the transformation of color between the harsh outside stone front and the inner playful courts, I found intriguing.For that I vote Jordan’s most sexy architecture is the desert’s.
So, yeah..I wonder what would you think?
The Maurice Observer 