The Azraq refugee camp in Jordan hosts about 35,000 people displaced by the Syrian civil war, who live in rows of small white steel sheds. Several years ago, a camp resident named Majid Al-Kanaan undertook a project to combat the visual and existential monotony of camp life. Using clay and stones from camp terrain, he built a colonnade of decorative arches in front of his shed, referencing the Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, Syria — and added elements alluding to Syria’s Citadel of Aleppo and the Umayyad desert palaces in…
