Amman's culture runs through the hillside villas of Jabal al-Weibdeh, where Jordan's National Gallery holds 3,000 works from 66 countries. Three days of independent galleries, King Abdullah I's Ottoman-revival mosque, live maqam music and artist-run studios.
Two buildings facing each other across Weibdeh's Ridha Tawfiq park, holding 3,000+ works of modern and contemporary art from 66 countries across Asia, Africa and the Arab world. Open 09:00–19:00, closed Tuesdays. Sculpture garden between the wings.
The 1989 octagonal mosque on Al Malek Al Hussein Street, crowned by a 35-metre blue mosaic dome with no interior columns supporting it. Prayer hall holds 7,000. Non-Muslim visitors welcome outside prayer times; abayas provided free at the door.
Three restored 1920s villas on the Jabal al-Weibdeh hillside, one of them the house where T.E. Lawrence briefly stayed, built over a 6th-century Byzantine church whose apse sits open in the garden. Free entry, closed Sundays, library and residency studios on site.
Walk the tiled public staircases linking Weibdeh to Jabal Amman — Kalha Stairs are covered in mural work by Jordanian and visiting street artists — then take the terrace at Wild Jordan for the escarpment view west over Al-Balad.
Jordan's national museum in a modern limestone building by Ras al-Ain, holding the 9,000-year-old Ain Ghazal plaster statues — among the oldest human figures ever made — and the original Copper Dead Sea Scroll from Qumran Cave 3.
A converted house on a Weibdeh side street where the city's writers, filmmakers and gallery staff work through the afternoon. Arabic coffee with cardamom, mint lemonade and mezze plates; bookshelves and a courtyard under a fig tree.
Two collections built into the vaulted side chambers of the Roman theatre: Bedouin looms, goat-hair tents and grinding stones on one side; Palestinian and Jordanian embroidered thobes, silver jewellery and Byzantine floor mosaics on the other.
An independent 200-seat venue off Al-Hashemi Street programming Arabic experimental music, oud and maqam recitals, documentary screenings and contemporary dance. Tickets 7–15 JOD; the annual Al-Balad Music Festival runs in August.
The 1924 building on King Faisal Street, once Jordan's first post office and finance ministry, restored by Mamdouh Bisharat as a free public salon of period furniture and photographs. Open daily; the caretaker walks you through the rooms.
An open-air Friday market on a Jabal Amman stepped lot, running weekly from May to September, where Jordanian craftspeople sell ceramics, soap from Nabulsi olive oil, embroidery and second-hand books alongside live sets from local bands.
Weibdeh's independent galleries sit within a few blocks of Paris Circle: Nabad Art Gallery in a 1950s house, Zara Gallery and rotating project spaces showing emerging Jordanian painters, printmakers and calligraphers. Most open 11:00–19:00, closed Fridays.
The Film Commission occupies a stone villa at the Jabal Amman end of Rainbow Street, with a free outdoor screening programme of Arab and international cinema on its terrace above the valley, plus a reference library of Jordanian film.