- Built
- 1980
- Capacity
- ~3,000
- Status
- Modern, not ancient
- Debate
- Roman remains suspected beneath
This is the one building here that misleads people, and it does so in almost every photograph taken of the Citadel. It looks Roman. It is not. It was built in 1980, as an open-air venue for concerts and cultural events, and it seats around three thousand.
Two things are worth saying plainly. The first is that it works: the Citadel has been a place where Aleppo gathers for a very long time, and a stage on the summit continues that rather than interrupting it.
The second is that archaeologists have argued for its removal, because Roman remains are suspected in the unexcavated ground beneath it, and what is under a modern concrete bowl cannot be dug. Whether it stays is a decision for the antiquities authority, and it has not been made.