Branding Cities Through Architecture: Identify, Formulate, and Communicate the City Image of Amman, Jordan

Abstract

This research aims to explore the role of architecture in creating an identifiable brand for Amman. It seeks to put forward a vision through which Amman’s city can formulate a clear model for implementing a successful branding strategy. In doing so, this research studies the concepts associated with the ideas of branding, city image and identity, and the extent to which such ideas are to be implemented in Amman. The study adopted an inductive approach using in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 35 experts with central roles in stating the city’s key values that best reflect the city’s identity. A thematic analysis was conducted in line with theoretical aspects, including the city’s message, strategies for formulating the brand, and communication via architecture. The image of Amman shows an obvious distinction between its historical character and modern global styles as it suffers from disorder within its architectural landscape. Amman needs to rethink its identity in order to create a new brand that keeps pace with time without losing the originality of the place. This calls for re-evaluating the role of the iconic buildings and their associations with the surroundings, enabling them to become of significant presence, both symbolically and operationally, in expressing the city’s personality and promoting its message.

1. Introduction

Cities continuously strive to improve citizens’ quality of life, enabling them to attain greater prosperity and well-being. In doing so, cities endeavor to enhance their opportunities for competitiveness, excellence, and uniqueness on the local, regional, and global levels. More and more cities are investing in branding campaigns to promote their images and establish an advanced reputation to gain a greater share of the global market [1,2,3]. Literature reviews reveal a crucial role of architecture in the process of branding cities [4,5,6,7]. Numerous cities worldwide are best known for their unique architecture, such as peculiar iconic buildings or charming urban contexts. Architecture has proven to be one of the most effective tools in formulating and communicating cities’ images. However, such a role raises questions about the character of the local architecture and its success in representing or producing unique identities that are connected to the local contexts, as opposed to imitating global design formulas. This question is associated with the broader debate about identity, the plurality of urban imaginaries that coexist among people, and the impact this has on generating a distinctive and representative city brand.

Like other cities, Amman, the capital of Jordan, intends to brand its image to compete globally and distinguish itself as a destination that adds positive value to its people and visitors. This intent compels us to develop a clear vision and strategy that puts forward a representative and contextualized image of the city that genuinely reflects its physical, cultural, social, and economic assets. This requires a broader insight into the different urban imaginaries to build a distinctive and expressive city identity in which architecture plays a significant role.

In light of that, this research seeks to put forward a vision by which Amman City can formulate a model to carry out a successful branding strategy. The research explores architecture’s role in creating an identifiable brand for Amman. It seeks to study concepts associated with branding, city image, and identity and the extent to which such ideas are to be implemented in Amman. The research attempts to identify the city’s values, explore its urban imaginaries, and formulate a proper branding strategy that helps communicate the city’s brand. The research builds on previous formal and informal efforts to develop a representative brand for the city, in light of the ongoing transformations in the city’s structures that are keeping pace with modern development while preserving the authenticity of the place.

2. Literature Review

2.1. City Branding: Theory and Definition

The concept of city branding has been developed over a long period of time from traditional product marketing. Dinnie [8,9] defines city branding as a mix of qualities that define the city with a culturally grounded identity that constitutes territory, history, landscape, sport, language, arts, political regime, religion, and architecture. Prilenska [10] describes it as “a process to build a positive image of the city and communicate it among various target groups via visuals, narratives, and events locally and internationally to gain a competitive advantage among other cities.” City branding aims to enhance a place’s attractiveness as a recipient of business investment and talent, improve its competitive positioning in the tourism market, promote citizens’ identification with their place of residence, and facilitate overall economic and social development. It is as a marketing method targeting excellent economic opportunities, livable environments, and an improved life quality for people [11]. Zenker and Braun [12] define city branding as follows: “a network of associations in the consumers’ mind based on the visual, verbal, and behavioral expression of a place, which is embodied through the aims, communication, values, and the general culture of the place’s stakeholders and the overall place design.” This definition underlines several critical issues. First, a brand is formed in people’s minds, driven by stimuli shaped by place components; second, a brand is a multitude of associations that are not always aligned; third, the brand describes a process embodied in diverse actions and objects. The fourth issue is the significance of the place’s multitude of stakeholders [13].

The complex and multidisciplinary nature of the field has resulted in a fragmented theory foundation and conceptual confusion [1,2,14]. Generally, two distinct approaches to the city branding concept dominate the literature: the “marketing-oriented” and the “planning-oriented.” In the marketing-oriented approach, city branding is defined as a demand-oriented communication process, treating the city as a commodity or a product to be sold in the market. While this approach has provided much of the city branding concept’s current popularity and contributed to the field’s development, it limits the role of branding to a communication–promotional tool with an emphasis on visual strategies devoid of the social and spatial processes tied to place [15]. In such an approach, the role of residents and other stakeholders in brand creation is marginal. The planning-oriented approach proposes architecture as a medium that can deliver new experiences and perceptions while being a part of a more extensive system that brings together economic developments, technological progress, and social change [16] (p. 206). From this perspective, the place becomes the object of branding and the locus of value, embedded in social practice and situated in a spatial location, endeavoring to present the sole image and identity of a place that is strongly tied to its people [1,14,17,18].

Cities employ their cultural heritage, history, and architectural identity to upgrade their image to ascertain a strong and unique brand. Hence, a brand presents an entity of the city’s products shared by a communal image, identity, and communication strategy [19]. It encapsulates the city’s narrative, encompassing its culture, history, infrastructure, governance, and overall quality of life [20]. The city’s image starts with managing what brand the city wants to create for itself, what emotions it would like to stimulate, and the mental image linked to those emotional aspects.

2.2. The City Image and Identity

The city image results from overlapping and ambiguous messages the city sends and is formed in the receivers’ mind [21,22]. Hubbard and Hall [23] state that it is best to consider the branded city as an imaginative city shaped by many images and representations. These images connect actual, objective space and its conception [24]. Hence, branding the city is about promoting the city itself and its image. According to Ashworth [25], the central entity in city branding is to build a unique internal and external image that tells a unifying story about the value of the city. Each place has its own identity or personality, identified by distinctive features—both tangible and intangible—catalyzed by images. Those images offer a sense of identity, well-being, and belonging. They form the basis of memory systems; they attract attention and make a place storable in the mind [26]. A strong image exists when a majority shares similar associations, whereas a positive image exists when those associations are perceived as favorable in a specific context. The brand concept aims to bridge the gap between place identity, experience, and image [16,21,25,27,28,29,30].

A place’s identity is generated from the beliefs, meanings, values, emotions, and attitudes assigned to the place, associated with cognitions of the physical world [13]. According to Hatch and Schultz [31,32], identity is an ongoing conversation between culture and image via four interactive processes. The first is the process of expressing, through which identity expresses cultural understanding. The second is the process of impressing, through which the identity leaves impressions on others. The third is the process of mirroring, through which the identity mirrors the images of others, and the fourth is the process of reflecting, through which identity is implanted in cultural understanding [13]. Hence, one can think of branding as a facilitator of the identity process that informs the character and the quality of the brand experience [16,28,29].

2.3. City Branding and Dynamics of Urban Imaginary

Kavaratzis and Hatch [13] highlight two fallacies that are repeatedly committed when addressing identity and its relationship with city branding, particularly under the marketing-oriented approach. The first is the assumption that there is a fixed single core identity that can be identified, portrayed, and reflected, and that this identity pre-exists the place branding. The second assumption is that identities are internal to the place and disconnected from outsiders. Such assumptions reflect a static view that simplifies the complex processes of determining how places are seen, felt, evaluated, and co-created [13,32]. As such, identity is seen as the outcome of a decision-making process reformed in a ready-made fashion that is manageable and easily communicated. This contradicts the reality that places do not have concrete uniform identities and are seen differently by different audiences. This calls for a more dynamic view of place branding that understands the place brand as a network of associations in the minds of the place’s stakeholders, hence reconsidering identity not as an outcome but as a dialogue between stakeholders [2,33,34].

Cities are intricate geographies that cannot be grasped in their totality. They have at least as many meanings and configurations as they do inhabitants. A city has two broad constituents: materiality and a realm of meaning. The first is manifested in the built environment, and the second is a more abstract and intangible notion that is practiced, represented, and sensed. Within the realm of meaning, unlimited prospects emerge by which the city can be defined, experienced, imagined, and branded, making it quite challenging to reach a fixed and unified imagery that can be widely accepted. While there is only one “real” built city, varieties of urban imaginaries coexist and compete for dominance [3,27].

As a concept, urban imaginary presents a platform for exploring the city’s multiple meanings. Lindner and Meissner [35] refer to urban imaginary as a concept that acknowledges how space is simultaneously material, conceptual, experienced, and practiced, building upon a general conceptualization of imaginaries that describe possible futures and prescribe desired ones. Kavaratzis and Kalandides [36] presume that the process of image and brand construction is a synthesis of the different assets of the place, including material elements, collective memory, social interactions, institutions, and elements of representativeness. Hence, the place brand formation process starts when people use place-making elements to form mental associations, i.e., urban imaginaries with the place. Soja [37] suggests that such associations are always in transition as they interact with one another, reflecting transformations in the intersecting fields of culture, politics, economy, nature, and technology [11,35,38,39]. Given that “urban imaginary” constitutes a vibrant framework for conceptualizing and formulating the city brand that embraces the plurality and dynamism associated with identity, from this perspective, city branding comes to be construed as a competitive strategy that operates on image and its decisive, enduring role in experiencing place brands [1,40].

Greenberg [41] notes that although diverse urban imaginaries may coexist, they do not compete equably. Distinct groups with varying degrees of power have different resources available to represent and promote a single version of the urban imaginary that serves their interests [3,27]. Place branding shows a clear tendency to focus on exogenous investment and tourism development, driven by elites’ growth-oriented urban imaginaries. Such imaginaries are often at odds with more critical urban imaginaries based on social justice [1]. This has led to communications that are primarily disconnected from internal audiences, where a place’s residents are commonly left outside the branding decisions of their place. The result is a disconnection to the “sense of place” and a lack of understanding, resulting in a gap between the image and reality [34]. In light of that, cities need to draw on the diversity of social perspectives by researching citizens’ narratives to build a more democratic, pluralist, and inclusive urban imaginary [35,37].

City branding centers on identity and should be thought of as a complex process that facilitates the process of identity formation and sustains the reputation of a place over time [1]. If the brand is not based on identity, then the branding effort can lead to a brand that is alien to the place and its internal audiences [13]. Arguably, one of the drivers for the shift towards place branding has been the need for cities to redefine themselves through a process of reimaging, seeking to render a positive image of their urban realities. The vital policy in city branding is place making (construction and cooperation). Construction refers to actions that support brand privileges, such as creating icons, buildings, or other symbolic actions, as well as the development of infrastructure and events [42]. Cooperation refers to finding a shared base between stakeholders to determine what makes a city special and attractive within the different imaginaries and ensuring that all the participants are involved in creating the city brand and are able to “live the brand”. Accordingly, place branding is understood as a matter of compromise, shared values, and collective benefits, where everyone participates in drawing the city’s image within their potential capacities [34].

2.4. The Co-Creation of a City Brand

City branding is identity-driven, as it seeks to select the values and narratives of a place that will influence people’s perceptions of and associations with it. Brand image is a shared reality based on place identity and constructed through social interaction in a continual process of iteration, where meanings created by stakeholders play a fundamental role [18,30]. Hence, successful city branding must be built (co-created) on a consensus among stakeholders regarding the city’s identity and core values. The co-creation of the city brand requires the involvement of diverse stakeholders, particularly residents and local community groups, whose daily lives are closely tied to the place’s identity, to be collaboratively and inclusively engaged [13,18,43,44]. The importance of participation and co-creation by local communities, organizations, and businesses is highlighted by many place branding scholars [30,43]. The extent to which city branding aligns with or clashes with residents’ experiences and appreciates their needs, concerns, and wishes can affect their sense of belonging to the city [45].

While the idea of local participation is welcomed and championed in place branding research and practices, struggles persist around garnering support and engagement from diverse local stakeholders and rallying them around aspirational plans to shape society [43]. Although several studies have examined stakeholders’ involvement in city branding, still most research predominantly focuses on limited groups of stakeholders at a time [44]. There are inherent complexities and challenges when engaging extensively with diverse stakeholders. The raw, heterogeneous, multifaceted, and contradicting reality of stakeholders makes it challenging to develop a city brand that aligns with residents’ experiences and matches a “picture perfect” brand image while avoiding superficial stereotyping, especially in super-diverse cities [18,43,44,45]. Hence, identifying relevant groups and stakeholders is typically a demanding process. As branding is fundamentally about selecting which part of an identity to display and praise, it becomes challenging to reach a genuine, positive, and inclusive consensus among all stakeholders [30]. This entails ensuring equal access to effective participation and decision-making through a governance structure that allows for the alignment of internal publics with the processes of city brand development [39,43].

2.5. Architecture and City Branding

Architecture can be seen as an identity definer and a promotional tool that affects the formation of cultural meanings of places and reflects the set of prevailing values [16,31]. As a part of a city’s physical attributes, architecture is closely connected to daily experiences that evoke personal memories strongly associated with the city. Architecture has always been used as a propaganda tool to represent the power and authority of states through monuments, iconic buildings, and urban design elements [36,46]. The most famous cities worldwide have benefited from constructing iconic buildings that have become an integral part of their cultures and identities and a source of their pride and uniqueness. These monuments have become signifiers of the cities where they are built and symbols of their respective nations. Iconic architecture is now a part of the contemporary city and its image and identity [19,27,47,48].

For city branding, unique architecture and urban design are essential requirements that are extensively referred to in order to fully develop its aesthetic and experiential values and meet commercial and public needs [45,49,50]. Cities with distinct cultures and recognizable architectural features are more popular than those without them. According to McNeill and Tewdwr-Jones [51], architecture can affect the construction of the cultural meanings of places. They argue that architecture can even be seen as one of the principal vehicles for national (ist) expressions of identity. Furthermore, the symbolic capital of architectural design can be transformed into economic and cultural capital in the city’s development process. From a commercial perspective, architecture is also used in conjunction with corporate identity, reflecting the brand’s consistency in the design and visual appearance [52,53]. This has created the notion of the building as a “marketing object” or seeing architecture as a branding device sparking the appearance of iconic buildings and expressive landmarks [27,46,54,55,56]. Architecture has the power to generate colossal public interest and to play a crucial role in marketing places as attractive features [46]. Buildings can become brands in their own right while simultaneously being landmarks that can communicate the vision and identity of their cities [16]. This depends, according to Castillo-Villar [31], on their level of recognition (local, national, or global), the type of recognition (professional or public), and the historical stage of creation (pre-global or global).

3. Branding Amman and the Paradox of City Identity

Amman is the capital and largest city in Jordan. It is the political, cultural, and economic center of the country. The city is considered an ancient home of civilization dating back to 8000 BC and has originally developed its architectural identity based on its history and cultural diversity [57]. The climate greatly shapes the city’s urban growth, showing a contrast between wet, cold winters and hot, dry summers. The sloppy topographic nature consists of a series of steep hills and deep narrow valleys. Amman is considered a megacity characterized by rapid population growth and spectacular social development [58]. Almost half of the city’s residents are non-Jordanians, consisting of forced and economic migrants, most of whom are Palestinians, Iraqis, Syrians, and Egyptians. The accelerating increase in the demography of Amman led to remarkable alterations in the urban and social fabric of the city. A correlate of this history of rapid growth has been the noticeable social divide that has come to characterize the city, leaving a double opposition between east and west, poor and rich, with marked social cleavages that characterize the urban space and the fabric of the city [59,60].

Amman’s image reflects a significant diversity that represents the several layers of civilizations surrounded by modern architecture and a rich heritage legacy. The diversity of civilization molded the city’s identity, reflecting a high density of cultural resources representing different architectural styles [61]. The architectural identity in Amman is, however, a debated concern. The debate is not only about styles but also about social needs, cultural aspirations, and economic constraints. Over the last four decades, and due to the acute effects of modernity, globalization, and the immigrants’ influxes from surrounding countries, the city engaged in building a new image, seeking the formation of a modern local identity [62,63]. Consequently, the city started losing its unique historical character, facing a break in the continuity of the genetic morphology of its urban structure, converting into a city with a more heterogeneous identity with a split in its urban fabric [57,64,65,66,67]. The city gradually became a complex cultural state because of the new mega development projects, the imposition of foreign ideas, global trends in architecture, cultural representation, and new power structures. Therefore, Amman’s architectural identity became unclear and needed to be redefined [68].

Architects and decision-makers have attempted to deal with the paradox of Amman’s image by creating a firm image of the city through architecture that preserves the local identity. While some architects attempt to integrate local architecture into global cultural trends, others try to revive the traditional architectural style to protect the local identity and heritage. The resulting image, in the end, is, as described by Dahabreh [62], “A chaotic architectural scene representing a current state of confusion”; in other words, a fragment with a lack of identity [61]. Recently, new generations of Jordanian architects have formed a new layer of the city’s image—hybrid modernity, in which features from Western and Eastern modernity are adapted and become one among the multiple layers of Amman’s image [65].

Over the last 20 years, Amman applied two branding exercises to promote itself and build its international reputation. Architecture was at the core of both brands. The first exercise came in 2002 with the selection of Amman as the Arab Capital of Culture. The city developed a cultural tourism brand, emphasizing marketing strategies and planning tactics that sought to improve Amman’s image as such [69]. The government combined architecture and cultural events, seeking to brand Amman as a hub of cultural activities, emphasizing the city’s historical and traditional legacy, yet in a commodified manner.

The disengagement between Amman’s brand and the associated image soon became apparent, leading to the search for a new city brand. This focus on Amman’s identity geared the re-branding exercise in a direction that was different from that of 2002. The 2009 re-branding strategy attempted to redefine Amman’s identity by adopting a more planning-oriented approach that sought urban improvement. A common theme was the city’s rich origins and diverse backgrounds. The new exercise focused on the whole image, shedding light on Amman’s skyline and reflecting the architectural image’s dynamism from a local perspective. Although the 2009 brand received greater acceptance, the adopted city’s identity and accompanying values remained a source of controversy. The subject still needs much inspection to reach a clear definition of the identity among the challenges of the local perspective versus the global mind-set to reach a brand that genuinely represents Amman and imposes a positive image for it [69], to which this research attempts to contribute.

4. Research Methodology

City branding constitutes a tool by which a city promotes itself, markets its signature identity, and refines its curriculum toward improving its life quality. This involves the engagement of a broad spectrum of ideas and viewpoints by various stakeholders in a “multilogue” process via a concrete, qualitative, and quantitative methodology that integrates different stakeholder voices (residents, social organizations, economic entities, political parties, etc.) into a broader citizens’ dialogue that combines the different visions into a saleable identity acceptable to all people.

The research aimed to develop a concept of city branding and explore how architecture can be used to create a distinct city image for Amman that reflects its personality and resonates with its people. The first step involved conducting extensive reviews of the literature addressing city branding, with a focus on local studies and projects. The second step comprised conducting qualitative interviews with selected community members. Due to time and material limitations, it was quite challenging to involve all stakeholders. Accordingly, the research targeted one small but significant group of local players as a first step, providing imperative insights toward more comprehensive and inclusive steps. The targeted group encompassed the professionals and urban imaginers who are commonly engaged in shaping the city’s image. The work involved in-depth, semi-structured interviews with experts representing various specialties and viewpoints. The interviewers were selected based on purposive sampling, targeting individuals who are well-informed about city branding and identity issues, can play vital roles in expressing the city’s values and building its public image, and have effective communication channels with various community members and agencies. The targeted group covered a variety of professions, including architects, planners, artists, writers, journalists, and sociologists, with a diversity of ages, experiences, and occupations as a part of the grassroots citizen base that resides the city, who usually practice multifaceted roles as ambassadors for the city brand, reflecting their distinctive positions and standpoints.

The sample covered 35 academics and professionals, including those representing the official (governmental) viewpoint and those representing the public. This helped comprehend the individuality of Amman’s case to verify the fundamental values and attributes that best reflect the city’s identity towards formulating its city brand. Interviewees were informed in advance about the research and its purpose, and they were asked to provide their consent to participate, ensuring adherence to data protection provisions. In order to maintain consistency among interviews, a preliminary schedule was prepared to outline the interview, identifying the main points to be addressed. An interview protocol was developed, including a set of predetermined open-ended questions, which provided flexibility to explore the emerging themes that individuals described from their personal experiences. The structure of the interviews revolved around the three main themes illustrated in Figure 1.

Monitoring procedures were carried out during the interviews to ensure the proper management of time and subject. After the interviews, the recordings were transcribed in full. The transcriptions were analyzed inductively in line with qualitative textual analysis procedures. The data were systematically examined through a thematic content analysis, comprising the coding of the data and its categorization into key themes and sub-themes, in line with the theoretical aspects, including the city message and image, and the strategies for formulating and communicating the brand. Connections were demonstrated between variables to build a credible and reasonable set of indicators.

5. Results and Discussion

5.1. Identifying the Branding Message

5.1.1. Setting Core Values

In creating a brand, the primary challenge is to determine the core of the brand identity. The starting point for branding a city is to establish its core values, which form the brand essence and the soul of the image by which a city’s residents define themselves [70]. In doing so, respondents were asked to select five out of forty given words that they believed best represented Amman’s central assets, i.e., personality traits. Those values can provide a basis for understanding people’s relationship with their city. Figure 2 illustrates the ten most cited words/values.

The most cited values—in descending order—were “traditional, “friendly”, “diverse”, “safe”, and “harmonious”, followed by “socializing”, “livable”, “global”, “high-tech”, and “futuristic”. These values reflect people’s attitudes towards the city. A strong emphasis was placed on the traditional facet of the city, covering both the natural and the built milieus, stressing a conservative viewpoint that acclaims the city’s authenticity. The majority of the participants highlighted that the traditional image comes first in representing the actual image of Amman, which reflects a set of prevailing social and cultural assets shared by citizens of the city. It is noticeable that the majority of values that the participants addressed while expressing the city’s identity reflect the societal dimension of the city, signifying, in a way, the peculiarity of the city’s demographics, the way of life, and the set of morals and values that governs the society. Such meanings include being social, friendly and welcoming, safe and comfortable, and diverse and harmonious, all of which promote the primary message of hospitality and coexistence. These results essentially mimic the findings from Majzoub et al. [71], who examined the personality traits of a residential neighborhood in Amman, confirming the ascendency of heritage, old, traditional, friendly, sensual, intimate, easygoing, and welcoming among other personality assets, which confirms the close connection between the city’s identity with its heritage and human and emotional sides. Additionally, a noticeable percentage of the participants denoted ideas of modernity, advancement, technology, and futurism, reflecting aspirations about the city. This disparity reflects a polarized state between adherence toward originality on the one hand and the call towards modernity and contemporary on the other. This polarity can be evidently observed nowadays when looking at both the architectural and the social landscapes of the city.

5.1.2. Outlining the City Image

Effective city branding catches the imaginations of people by mirroring their impressions and expectations. Therefore, the arrangement of interview questions aimed to trigger the participants to investigate their feelings and expectations toward the city’s image, focusing on the physical architectural image of Amman and the meanings perceived behind such image.

The participants agreed on three major features that distinguish the city image of Amman and its architectural scape. The first is the white color stemming from the use of white stone as the prominent construction material, resulting in Amman being distinguished as the “white city”. The second feature is the topographic morphology of the land that shapes the city’s natural landscape and profiles the vibrant skyline of the buildings, giving the city its dramatic scenery. This resulted from the adoption of simple cubic building blocks overlapping each other in a moderately clustered building pattern, as shown in Figure 3. The third feature is the diverse population composition. Amman is commonly known as the city of immigrants and has absorbed many waves of refugees over its history, which has noticeably influenced its architectural style.

It can be claimed that the city’s architectural scene is strongly associated with its natural, social, and technical components, which have succeeded in originating a rich, responsive, and congruent architecture that strongly respects human needs and scale. This architecture reflects the fundamental values of friendship, diversity, livability, intimacy, and harmony. These results are consistent with the outcomes of many studies that have addressed the identity of Amman, confirming a continued adherence to the traditional features of the local identity.

Amman used to be traditionally characterized by the uniformity of building forms and materials. Almost all historical and contemporary buildings in Amman are built with natural limestone, using simple geometrical shapes within restrained heights and volumes. The combination of materials and shapes gave the city a sense of order and consistency, essential in forming the city image. Many of the participants see Amman as an adaptive city with a consequential and dynamic growth. The city has shown its ability to maintain flexibility, seeking to keep its internal cohesion and upgrade itself to face adversities. As a constantly changing city, responding to social and spatial practices, state policies, and transitional influences that have left tangible effects on the city’s character, which has resulted in substantial transformations in the city’s social, urban, and architectural fabrics. The result, according to many of the participants, particularly architects, is losing the humane, unified urban and architectural fabric towards a more fragmented and dehumanizing structure, missing the primary architectural essences of the white stone, skyline, and cubic forms. In line with much of the literature [58,62,63,64,65,66,67,68,69], many of the participants claimed that the current image of Amman does not have a specific personality. The present architectural image tells us about the paradox of images between the old and new; the local and global; the traditional and western; the rich and poor; the upper class and lower class. Each image plays a role in creating the whole scene, and each image has a valuable message that tells us something about Amman separately as presented in Figure 4. A unified message has been replaced, as expressed by Zalloom [66], by a fragmented cityscape both on the micro-scale of architecture and the macro-scale of the urban landscape. This has been verified by several studies, including Atiyat [67], which show a “Break of continuity” and a “Lack of integration” among components of the built environment, resulting in a loss of clear organization in the city’s shape.

Many of the participants consider the topography a unique feature and driver in formulating the city’s image. Amman has a sizeable natural heritage system consisting of interconnected valleys, mountains, and plateaus. According to the participants, this system was more visible in the past than nowadays because of the uncontrolled city growth. As argued, Amman presently has two sorts of identities according to which people perceive the city. The first refers to the traditional uniform character stressing the authentic essence of the city, while the second part is connected with the diverse culture, resulting in an ever-changing image of the city. In light of that, we may ask the following: to what extent does Amman’s architecture, particularly its significant landmarks, reflect the city’s values and character? Referring to the key values cited earlier by the research participants, the following remarks have been made:

Traditional: The image of Amman says much about the city’s traditional heritage, which gives a sense of historical identity connected to the changeable culture over time. The traditional character can be seen throughout many architectural and urban monuments, some of which date back to the ancient historical periods and are still considered identifiable icons of the city. In addition, many modern buildings still imitate traditional architectural styles to preserve the city’s distinctive conventional identity.

Friendly and livable: Amman used to be friendlier and more intimate during its early days. One can strongly feel that in its older neighborhoods, architecture complies with site traits and respects the human scale. The shift towards high rise and massive constructions, the overuse of modern materials such as glass and steel, the poor care of the site, and the imposing of new architectural styles have created architecture out of scale and context. This has resulted in weak integration between the architectural and urban components in the city, which has negatively impacted users’ experience within the city’s urban realm and debilitated people’s connection to the place. This aligns with the findings of previous studies, which suggest that residents’ connection to the city is achieved through their representations of its authenticity, as people typically dislike places they perceive as inauthentic [45].

Diverse: Amman has a diverse character in its image; it combines tradition and modernity while recalling the cultural essence. The city’s architecture reflects a shift from traditional low-rise buildings to modern, high-rise, and high-tech buildings, introducing new designs, materials, and construction techniques. This diversity constitutes one of the most critical challenges in shaping the city’s identity, considering the ability to enrich the architectural variety while maintaining a harmonious and homogeneous pattern.

Safe and comfortable: Amman is considered a secure and safe city. The city is moderately organized, aided by several key architectural and urban landmarks that help support good orientation and wayfinding, which helps maintain higher safety levels. The architectural language used in buildings is commonly simple, far from being intricate or harsh, which usually creates feelings of dread and discomfort.

Harmonious: Amman is filled with buildings of a similar size, scale, style, and material, granting apparent levels of harmony. Such congruence is probably the reason for feeling the distinct architectural identity of the older parts of the city compared to the newer ones, where discrepancies in the architectural scenery started taking place.

Considering architectural landmarks and iconic buildings, most of the respondents referred to buildings that reflect the modern and futuristic vision of the global city image. The following are the five most cited landmarks by respondents as shown in Figure 5.

Housing Bank Complex: The project is considered a model of modern architecture in Jordan in the 80th of the past century. It was once the most distinguished landmark in the city and one of the most attractive visitor facilities. The architectural expression of the building is in harmony with the city’s hilly character and integrates itself with the terrain’s natural features. The building masses have a predominant scale when observed in the city’s skyline. With the turn of the new millennium, the complex started to lose much of its popularity in the face of other newer buildings. This resulted in losing this venue’s core value as the most attractive landmark in Amman.

Le Royal Amman: is one of Amman’s most distinctive monumental buildings. The project is located in the western part of the city within a context that owns some of the most elegant architectural buildings in Amman, comprising a mix of the city’s traditional and modern architectural legacy. The project has been criticized for not representing the identity of Amman. Moreover, opposing opinions refute how the building dominated the skyline of the whole city due to its massive structure, causing the city to lose its conventional human scale. Despite that, the building is considered today the most prominent and popular landmark of Amman.

Wadi Abdoun Bridge: Several of the participants articulated that Wadi Abdoun Bridge is a masterpiece of Amman. The project is considered a boom in the architectural style that turned the city’s identity from a historical to a modern image to introduce the contemporary global side of Amman.

Jordan Gate Towers: The project aims to be a visitors’ gate to Amman. The tower’s value was to introduce a new lively city image, adding a landmark of modernity and prosperity. This project constituted a broad case of controversy between being a turning point in the architecture of Jordan towards globalization and presenting an entirely different approach to the prevailing architectural trends through architectural treatments that are entirely out of context. The challenge has been to keep such a large project sympathetic to the dominant low-rise fabric of the city. The project faced many problems during construction, eventually leading to the suspension of work while remaining a prominent landmark that crosses the city’s skyline.

Amman Rotana Tower: A part of Al Abdali—the new downtown of Amman at the city’s heart. The project offers a prestigious residential address for families and professionals to enjoy upscale and comfortable living with absolute peace of mind. It was designed to grant a modern environment and a stylish look offering a pinnacle of luxurious world-class services, far away from the traditional lifestyle of the city.

It can be argued that all the selected buildings lack the competencies to become actual symbols of the city’s brand and identity. Despite being relatively memorable and distinctive in terms of architectural form, they all miss the qualities of authenticity, co-creation, and place-making needed to create positive experiences of the place. They are all, according to the participants, out of the urban and architectural contexts, weakly connected with their surroundings, express the unilateral power of capital or governance, and miss the link with the city’s culture and personality. The projects are designed to represent internationally recognized architectural styles that seem incompatible with the city’s perceived initial image. They primarily respond to the demands of the transnational capitalist class and hegemonic elites, seeking to transform the city’s image by providing it with a more global taste. Such findings closely mirror arguments stated in other related studies, including, for instance, Dahabreh [62], Zalloom [66], and Daher [68].

This perception was reflected in a group of comments made by the participants, including, for example: “We should exploit the global fame of Amman and work on providing the city with a brighter, modern image.” Others, however, believe that the result of this process was the creation of new urban icons with an inscrutable meaning, which transmit multiple messages without committing to any of them. To borrow the comment of one of the academic participants, “It is not enough to build international landmarks; we should focus on creating masterpieces more sympathetic to the city and its identity”. This requires rethinking the role of landmarks in the city and their association with the spatial and temporal surroundings to reflect the city’s personality better and promote its message and values.

5.2. Formulating the City Brand

Formulating a branding strategy entails managing a group of components regarding the most suitable action plan to meet the city’s vision. The participants agreed on seven essential aspects that need to be sufficiently addressed to build a thriving city brand for Amman. These include the city’s spirit, originality, character, targeted audience, local status, global reputation, geographical extent, and city symbols. The following are vital thoughts that have been put forward in that regard:

People in Amman need to release their individuality towards a more collective interest to build a joint base that brings people into a cohesive or unified city vision, referred to by Majzoub et al. [71] as the “Umbrella Brand”. Developing the umbrella brand is a multifaceted work that aims to harmonize the city’s vision, image, and culture with those of its people. The city should search for the values that can attract people and match their needs and aspirations. It needs to maintain its traditional character while seeking its contemporary appeal. Amman remains a witness to various historical periods that form a part of its personality. Hence, when considering the global image, the government should, in parallel, pay attention to the city’s identity in order to create a city character based on the city’s core values, develop city structure, and support city culture.

Branding Amman is about promoting a better quality of life for people. It is about providing better services, more opportunities, and higher gains. The local government must decide the development direction in which Amman can achieve its branding requirements. Branding Amman should be a part of the city’s planning process that needs to construct the spatial experience and promote it through a clear image. Additionally, there is a need to reconsider the blurred role of the iconic buildings and the pivotal urban structures in Amman and direct them towards promoting a unified message or city image. This strategy has been followed by many cities in order to build a distinctive brand aiming to achieve great value among other cities around the world [70].

Referring to the participants’ viewpoints, the following strategies are to be considered:

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Develop a long-term vision for the current situation by recognizing what the city is, what it wants to be, and how to develop it in the future. In addition, a variety of stakeholders should be empowered to warrant continuity and a shared vision guided by strong leadership.

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Agree on a definite set of values attached to the personality of the city and develop a branding message that demonstrates this value based on a clear local perspective.

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Plan a branding strategy that revolves around the city’s true personality addressing both the internal and external audiences.

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Create a dynamic environment through developing urban actions and support a city culture enhanced with design elements that reflect the city’s values and assimilate the diversity of urban imaginaries among people.

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Embrace Amman’s contemporary identity without dismissing its heritage legacy.

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Carry out frequent reviews for branding practices in the city via special branding laws that match the city’s needs, aspirations, and assets.

The process of branding faces several challenges that hinder the success of transforming the abstract ideas of branding Amman into tangible urban and architectural realities that genuinely reflect the city’s identity.

Table 1. Challenges facing branding city of Amman.

Challenges	Type of Challenge	Answers Percentage
1. Disagreement on the need to brand Amman	Cultural	95%
2. The lack of an evident approach to brand the city	Administrative	70%
3. Contradictory perceptions of the city image	Cultural	10%
4. The absence of a defined architectural identity	Architectural	80%
5. Amman’s image has no clear message	Architectural	77%
6. Inadequate laws and regulations	Legislative	67%
7. Infrastructure and public facilities	Architectural	95%
8. Economic determinants	Economic	75%
9. The absence of proper communication tools	Cultural	65%
10. Inconsistencies in the city plan	Legislative	93%
11. The variety of styles and disorganized construction	Architectural	87%
12. Missing landmarks	Architectural	96%
13. The gap between planning and implementation	Cultural	70%

presents the most cited critical challenges by the study’s key informants. Contradictory perceptions of professionals and the public toward their city image are a key challenge that prevents them reaching a comprehensive vision of the city that is shared among the various groups. It is obvious that there is a kind of ambiguity among people regarding what they perceive about the image of Amman, which is presented as follows:

“Amman is a combination of many contradictory things; ignorance and education, poverty and wealth, new and old, organized and unplanned areas, which reflects on the residents, and makes a sort of segregation where the geographic areas become the identity”.

(Journalist)

“We are not sure who we are, and what we want to be. We are just copying from others because we think they are better. Some areas do not feel like Amman but do not even feel like other places…”

(Architect)

“Amman presents a combination of images that imitates all other cities in Jordan and presents both the poor and the rich”

(Writer)

This contradiction comes in line with the dynamics of city branding and urban imaginaries, extensively referred to in the literature. It reflects the city’s vibrancy and one of its extracted values, “diversity”, making it challenging to attain a unified imagery that is widely accepted among people. On the other hand, it reveals the varying degrees of power among social groups and the differences in their attitudes and viewpoints toward the city. In line with this, a growing number of researchers view the place brand as a network of associations in the minds of the place’s stakeholders, which is powerfully shaped by who the key stakeholders, having the greatest agency, are and in what potential capacity they contribute [34].

Several of the participants articulated that the city suffers from the slow development of its civic actions and the lack of introducing innovative and technological solutions into the built environment. Amman continues to grow and change rapidly in an uncontrolled manner. Many of the participants cited the absence of regulated strategic development plans and infrastructure facilities. As such, local authorities have not adjusted urban organization laws to control the requirements of city improvements and promote a specified urban and architectural style. The participants explain the essential need for a branding process directed by the government that seeks to enhance the city image at the local level. Many of the participants think there is no distinct approach for branding Amman, but rather some institutional and individual attempts to upgrade and brand the city’s image by media activists. The participants deliberate that there is no clear branding message for Amman, which prevents Amman’s architectural development in the right way. The government’s priority must be to define a clear vision for organizing the development process to change Amman’s image through the city branding umbrella.

5.3. Communicating the City Brand

Iconic architecture and mega-events are popular marketing tools for cities. Iconic architecture has a significant role in attracting visitors. At the same time, mega-events, such as festivals, use permanent buildings to promote the city’s image, utilizing the city’s culture in favor of a global taste. Many of the participants stressed the roles of the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and Greater Amman Municipality in that regard. Establishing effective communication channels among all the stakeholders is a key issue. A successful branding policy needs to involve vital local parties and stakeholders and share responsibilities among all the authorities to apply an efficient policy. This focuses on different targets at different stages of the process, increasing a sense of belonging through pride in the city. Those parties are the brand managers. They can develop new goals for the brand, and brand goals can support the city’s transformation, help to reinforce the city’s governance, and make the city more attractive to its target audience by further improving the city’s image.

Architectural symbols send precise meanings that create highly memorable images of the city. The most critical issue in city branding is to link the place brand to a spatial experience created from an interaction between the individual and the physical elements in experience networks. Examining the relationship between city branding and architecture is crucial in understanding the contributions of certain architectural elements and iconic structures to the city identity. This, as pointed out by Ali and Al-Khafaji [72], triggers the values associated with the city’s brand, hence conjuring psychological and social connotative meanings. Thus, the brand image becomes the brand’s perception in people’s minds, and it is what people believe about the brand.

Overall, findings show that the image of Amman has an apparent distinction between the historical character of the city on the one hand and the global influence on the other. The contradiction is probably a result of the gap between theory and practice, i.e., between aspirations and attitudes. While many specialists and representatives of the general public uphold the city’s traditional identity, emphasizing the authentic city’s locality, concerned authorities stimulate the contemporary disposition of the city with its global dimension. The results from the interviews showed a clear tendency among representatives of official authorities and public administrations towards the global vision of Amman. Such findings correspond with notions presented by Jelincic et al. [73] about the positions towards “destination/strategic branding” vs. “place/organic branding”. Typical destination branding derives from elements linked to the perception of a city as a destination only. It is a more top-down marketing approach that considers only a few elements of a city identity that the officials want to communicate, in addition to creating elements that are used as value enhancers serving an image communicated to outsiders. As such, citizens have little involvement in forming and maintaining the brand’s afterlife.

Conversely, place or organic branding is a bottom-up approach, seen as branding with a human face that respects local identity values and seeks to celebrate the city’s defining traits and genius loci. It has to do with the reality of a place, what it has, its people, and their way of living; that is, the identity of the community as found. It adopts a more customized approach that emphasizes, according to Majzoub et al. [72], the correlation between community narratives and their emotional attachment to the place, highlighting its unique attributes. Hence, it comes from within or “from the inside out”, where people speak for themselves in brand formation and communication. In that sense, it is seen as a tool for community development and improving people’s quality of life.

The government should provide a long-term vision to redefine the image of Amman city and control the haphazard development. The vision of Amman should be based on a comprehensive analysis, considering what the city is, what it wants to be, and how to achieve this, taking into account that balancing new elements of identity with the rich heritage and cultural traditions of the city is a challenging task. The investigation of Amman’s brand should include architectural determinism, where the topography, colors, and building forms are seen as directly affecting the city’s image. This does not negate the desire and the will to keep pace with the spirit of the time, but constructively with the spirit of place, as expressed by Daher [68], to celebrate the differences inherently present in the multiple layers of the city.

6. Conclusions

Although cities have different meanings and configurations through which people view and position themselves, they still hold some fundamental assets that form the backbone of an evident brand. Bounding such assets within a vision gives them an impetus and a direction that help achieve a distinct and inclusive brand. Amman is a deep-rooted city with a distinct natural, cultural, and architectural legacy. Amman’s brand image should be born from the values that unify the people, reflecting the intangible and experiential qualities of the city. One of Amman’s motifs is its cultural assets, which must be celebrated and utilized. Hence, it is believed that for any brand of Amman to succeed, it should embrace the traditional heritage of the city as the spine in formulating and communicating the city’s image. This image reflects the wide range of city values as stated by the research participants, combining the city’s heritage legacy (historical value), white stone (harmonious value), panoramic views (diversity value), and low-rise, clustered structures resting on mountains (friendly and safety value). This combination conveys the city’s unique “sense of place” that has developed over time.

Amman is currently suffering from a disorder in its architectural scene, which is sending confusing messages that do not comply with the city’s cultural assets. Hence, Amman needs to address this diffusing state and rethink its identity to create a new brand that keeps pace with time without losing the originality of place, borrowing the expression from Al-Raouf [72] of “formulating a brand with historical tributaries and future ambitions”. The acceptance of contemporary urban features and architectural landmarks depends on their relationship with the most representative aspects of the local identity and their ability to generate positive experiences. City branding centers on identity and should be thought of as a complex process that facilitates the process of identity formation and sustains the reputation of a place over time. To create and sustain an identity, buildings should be designed considering contextual harmony, representing and respecting the character of the place. The dynamics between city brands and urban icons present intense dilemmas in that regard. The effective contribution of contemporary architectural and urban icons to creating a unique and distinctive image of the city appears to be limited by their standardized reproduction and disconnection with the local context. Iconic architecture can be an appropriate tool for city branding if it is context-sensitive. Hence, the perception and affinity of residents are critical factors toward successful city brands; thus, it is necessary to understand their relationship with urban icons. In light of that, cities need to draw on the diversity of social perspectives through research on citizens’ narratives to build a more democratic, pluralist, and inclusive urban imaginary. This study constitutes a first step towards forming this imaginary, representing the viewpoints of a segment of the city’s citizens.

Identifying the city’s clear image must be a priority in the government’s plans to achieve the success of city branding. This entails the active involvement of key stakeholders and citizens. The stakeholders should analyze Amman’s current situation, then share ideas to establish or accept a specific architectural style and urban design guidelines to redefine the city’s identity. It is also essential to recognize the link between city planning and branding by adopting a brand-planning-oriented approach. The idea of branding must be embedded in the city’s planning system and applied through various building procedures and practices to play its role in building and strengthening the city’s personality and guiding the formation of an architecture that identifies the city’s spirit.