It won’t be easy. I start my journey to Rotterdam with tense anticipation. I know the market hall in Rotterdam well from publications, and my opinion is clear: it’s a monstrous construction that obviously wants to make itself smaller than it is on the outside with its cladding of camouflage gray granite slabs, but screams all the louder on the inside with a kitschy sky of giant fruits. In cross-section, the building forms a half-baked horseshoe, a tunnel that leads nowhere, an oversized fairground stall with apartments on the hump. A new typology, as the architects are promoting the project? Save us from that.
In fact, my criticism of the façade and form is now far less important when I am on site: the ribbon-like square of the Binnenrotte in the center, under which the tracks run and which therefore cannot be built on, appears cheerless, empty, draughty and not well defined on five out of seven days when there is no weekly market. The large, gray market hall has the same problem as the surrounding buildings: it is an island between islands – it lacks urban density. It does not appear permeable, but stands slightly elevated a few steps above the square, its reflective panes closing off the huge gate, sealing it off. It can only be entered through three narrow revolving doors that you have to squeeze through.
MVRDV have set up simple steel scaffolding as market stalls in Hall 96 on an area roughly the size of a soccer pitch. It’s fun to look, try, stroll and buy here. There is everything from currywurst to exclusive steak, from Dutch cheese to Turkish sweets. A good idea is to set up a terrace on the roof of the stalls, creating a “tasting room” on the roof. Something like this is often missing in traditional markets, because you work up an appetite while strolling around. However, it also brings the market closer to one of the usual “food courts” in shopping malls.
Restaurants, cafés, a cookery school, a household goods store and a wine shop have moved into the first two floors of the long sides of the tunnel. The interior façades of the 102 rental apartments and 126 condominiums, all of which have windows overlooking the market and a terrace to the outside, curve above. The higher you climb in the building, the more oblique the view of the market becomes, until at the very top of the 24 penthouses on the eleventh and last floor you can look straight down vertically.
Concept and compromises
But how did this design come about? Rotterdam is planning to renovate the former old town district and held an investor competition in 2004. The developer Provast submitted the design by MVRDV and won first prize, as the architects were able to combine the two specified residential slabs with a market. Priority was given to housing; there was no budget for a market hall. This resulted in the horseshoe shape, as the upper apartments, which close the arch, were too deep for good lighting – so the shape was slanted at the top. Towards the first floor, the storeys widen again in order to enlarge the retail space as required by the developer. In this way, the constraints did not shape the architectural idea, but deformed it like chewing gum.
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