National Gallery of Fine Arts

This has been on my to-do-list for a little while, and yesterday I finally made it: to the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts.

The gallery is located in 2 different buildings, on each side of a small park and houses a permanent collection of contemporary art from Jordan, the Arab world and other developing countries, mainly Africa and Asia.

Building number 1 as it is called, the one with the terrace on the top on the picture, is definitely the most interesting out of the 2. It is much bigger and the collection, I found, easier to understand and more approachable. I thought this one was impressive: it is views of street walls in Palestine.

On the 2nd floor there is a small library, specialised in arts of course. They have a small selection is Arabic, English and French.

There is also a small cafe, unfortunately closed when we were there. And then a small terrace with an amazing view over Amman and the Blue Mosque.

I found this picture very interesting. You can see the King Abdullah Mosque, aka the Blue Mosque, recognisable with its blue dome. It was built as memorial to the late King Hussein's grandfather. It is possible to visit it, so I really want to go. Just in front there is a church, other mosques around and then of course the building sites, squattered across Amman.

In the second building there is a small souk Zara outlet. It is handcrafts type of shop which can also be found mainly in hotels in Amman (Grand Hyatt, Intercontinental) but also in other hotels across the kingdom (Dead Sea, Petra, Aqaba). They offer jewelry, ceramics, postcards, woodwork, mosaics... Unfortunately it was closed in the middle of the afternoon... The entrance is 5JD per person (we didn't pay for my friend's daughter who is 10).

We had a nice afternoon. It is a small but interesting museum. There is access to strollers, wheelchairs... A good point as it is rare in this country.

There is also a nice garden and a cafe, will talk about that in a separate post. I took also plenty of pictures of the area, because the architecture is very different to the part of Amman where we live. All to come...