Ja'afar Tuqan (; 19 January 1938 – 25 November 2014) was a Palestinian-Jordanian

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Life and career

Early life

Ja'afar Tuqan was born in 1938 in

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

Mandatory Palestine Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

. He was the son of the Palestinian poet Ibrahim Tuqan, writer of the poem '' Mawtini'', the current national anthem of Iraq. He was also the nephew of both the Jordanian Prime Minister Ahmad Toukan and the Palestinian poet Fadwa Tuqan and thus a member of the

Tuqan family The Tuqan clan (; also variously romanized as ''Toukan'', ''Touqan'', ''Tukan'', and ''Tokan'') is a prominent Palestinian people, Palestinian and Jordanian people, Jordanian political and business family. During the Ottoman Empire, Ottoman era, t ...

. Tuqan graduated from the

American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB; ) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its main campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, autonomous board of trustees and offers programs le ...

in 1960. He worked upon graduating from AUB at the Jordanian Ministry of Public Works as a design architect, and then joined the firm Dar al-Handasah Consulting Engineers at their head offices in Beirut. In 1968, he established a private practice in Beirut, and in 1973, formed the partnership Rais and Tukan Architects, which later became Jafar Tukan and Partners Architects and Engineers, and was relocated to Amman, Jordan following the Lebanese Civil war during the mid-1970s. In 2003, Jafar Tukan and Partners Architects and Engineers merged with the Jordanian firm Consolidated Consultants for Engineering and the Environment.

Career

Tuquan designed the Municipality of

Amman Amman ( , ; , ) is the capital and the largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of four million as of 2021, Amman is Jordan's primate city and is the largest city in the Levant ...

in Ras al Ayn in association with Rasem Badran, and he belonged to several committees including that of the National Gallery. Ja'afar Tuqan also designed the Royal Automobile Museum, The Jordan Museum, the Yasser Arafat Museum in Ramallah, the Mahmoud Darwish Museum in Ramallah, the Central Bank of Jordan building and the Jordan Gate Towers. He was the recipient of the

Aga Khan Award for Architecture The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (AKAA) is an architectural prize established by Aga Khan IV in 1977. It aims to identify and reward architectural concepts that successfully address the needs and aspirations of Muslim societies in the fie ...

for his 1991 design of a Children's Village in

Aqaba Aqaba ( , ; , ) is the only coastal city in Jordan and the largest and most populous city on the Gulf of Aqaba. Situated in southernmost Jordan, Aqaba is the administrative center of the Aqaba Governorate. The city had a population of 148, ...

, Jordan. Tuqan served on the Board of Trustees of the Palestinian Art Court – Al Hoash.

Death

Tuquan died on 25 November 2014 in

, Jordan.

Notes

References

Exhibition of Touqan's works at French Cultural CentreDesigned the Royal Automobile Museum
1938 births 2014 deaths People from Nablus Palestinian architects Ja'afar American University of Beirut alumni People from Amman Jordanian architects Jordanian contemporary artists {{Palestine-architect-stub