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VEGETAVAULTDespite its gutsiness, MVRDVnew market hall is emblematic o

Rotterdams inability to conceivand sustain a sense of urban life

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REPORT

ROB BEVAN

You cant use the word provocative after

9/11, reckons Winy Maas. It could suggest

architecture as incitement to violence ordiscord. But in a positive sense, he accepts

that MVRDVs covered market for Rotterdam

is exactly that: a provocation about scale,

about contextuality, about food culture

and how we live.

It is also about bringing vitality back to

central Rotterdam a painfully slow process

that must address the blitz of May 1940 that

saw only 12 city-centre buildings survive

thesubsequent firestorm, clearances and

thezoning of the post-war rebuilding that

helped depopulate the inner city.

Visit today and Rotterdam, a municipality

with a population of 618,000 is still curiously

quiet, especially after dark. Lamps glowinapartment windows and some restaurants

are busy but the streets are empty. Life has

been dispersed and what remains is in what

Maas calls a city of spots; areas such as

the pre-war survivors Witte de Withstraat

and Delfshaven where something of the

citys earlier vigour survives if muted.

Some locals put it down to Rotterdams

working-class, nose-to-the-grindstone culture

(Rotterdammers, it is said, buy their shirts

with the sleeves already rolled up).

MVRDV has just created a new spot with

its 175 million Markthal. It faces an open

space the size of Beijings Tiananmen Square

between Blaak and Binnenrotte that isoccupied only twice a week by a large outdoor

market of about 450 stalls. Stallholders are

usually itinerant, travelling from town to town

for market days. The rest of the week it lies

empty, a great north-south gash in the city

like a landing strip separating the pound-shop

infested dog-end of the shopping district from

the finer streets around Pannekoekstraat.

The latter was rebuilt shortly after the war in

a humane brick Modernism along the pre-war

street pattern another successful patch of

city life, if under-scaled, and a testament to

what might have been but for a change of tack

and the tabula rasa planning that followed.

Once the heart of the historic city, theRotte river ran here, culverted in the 19th

century and later filled by a north-south

railway viaduct, but the line too has since

been buried and the viaduct demolished in the

name of urban design. The post-war buildings

that previously backed onto the line then

backed onto the open space and were later

demolished. The late medieval Laurenskerk,

a rare blitz survivor just to the north,

1. (Previous spreanew market is houa cavernous vaultwith zingy supergrfrescoes of fresh 2. The building tera vast market squ3. Visitors throng stalls and cafs, gthe huge space a csense of animatio

Markthal,Rotterdam,The Netherlands,MVRDV

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site plan

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however, presents its apse for inspection.

To the south is the now subterranean Blaak

station and the quarters around Oude Haven

(the old harbour) and neighbouring Wijnhaven

that after the decline of port-related industry

on this stretch of the waterfront sat mostlyidle for many decades.

The Markthal is one of many projects that

have from the mid-80s onwards attempted to

fill this yawning urban gap. In the first month

since it opened in October, it had attracted

a million curious visitors an astonishing

number in a country of 16 million all eager

to see a 40m-high vault entirely lined with a

vegetal mural and set within a thickly layered

crust of 228 apartments clad externally in

Chinese granite. Some 12,000 people an hour

can pass through at weekends.

The project, for Dutch developer Provast,

sprang out of the rumour that EU regulations

were about to ban outdoor markets fromselling hygiene-sensitive foods. This never

happened but the impetus to build survived

the severe post-2008 downturn in the Dutch

economy and after 10 years (five under

construction) it has arrived, a stonking

instant icon whose original purpose had

evaporated. Part of its attraction to visitors

lies in the obstreperous design, part in the

fact that the covered market was never a

Dutch building te Maas doesnt know why.

He bridles a little at the description of the

building as a triumphal arch. The form was

arrived at after a study of mainland Europes

covered food markets especially those of

Spain and France, as well aspects of the morelifestyle orientated markets of Copenhagen

and Stockholm. EMBTs rightly celebrated

Santa Caterina market of 2005 in Barcelona

(AR November 2005) with its brilliantly

coloured waveform roof was a direct

inspiration. Maas doodles sketches showing

the evolution of his response to a brief that

demanded a market hall and two residential

blocks. Initially it was conceived of as a

pitched-roof market form flanked by two

parallel slabs of apartments. Market use

and residential then fused into one s

It morphed into an inhabited square

then a portal frame then a flattened

arch (which could be constructed in

in-situ concrete rather than steel) w

feet were flared out to accommodatdevelopers desire for additional floo

in the parallel rows of restaurants an

that flank the market hall proper. Th

supergraphics of giant fruit and vege

have been likened to poppy Sistine C

style frescoes but Maas prefers to na

Brunelleschis San Lorenzo for the a

his vault whose glazed ends are an el

executed cable-net that can flex up t

to accommodate wind loads.

The Markthal apartments are bas

single aspect but each has internal w

that peer down onto the shoppers be

These inclined windows decrease in

until they appear as one metre squarpanels set in the floors small light-

for the penthouse apartments. Bene

street level is a supermarket anchor

cool storage facilities for the stands

Markthal and three layers of parking

the largest facility in the city.

Maas makes free with his green p

sketching another line of shapes th

the architectural menagerie that Ro

The digital supergraphicsof giant fruit and vegetableshave been likened to poppySistine Chapel-style frescoes

but Maas prefers to namecheckBrunelleschis San Lorenzofor the arch of his vault whoseglazed ends are an elegantlyexecuted cable-net

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4. (Previous spread)resembling a gigantictriumphal arch, the glazedends of the market hallare enclosed by complexcable net structuresthat can flex 700mm inresponse to wind loads

Markthal,Rotterdam,The NetherlMVRDV

ground floor plan

first floor plan

section AA

B B

1 entrance to Markthal

2 market stalls3 shops and restaurants4 entrance to apartments5 garage access6 apartment7 roof terrace8 penthouse9 patio with market view

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A

2

2

3

3

3

3

4 4

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0 20m

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section BB

eleventh floor plan

tenth floor plan

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has assembled in recent decades in its bid

to create a densified somewhere out of a

blitzed nowhere: OMAs De Rotterdam on

the south side of the river, the inverted Y

of the Van Berkel & Bos Erasmus Bridge,

the Markthal arch and what appears to bethe sawtooth roofline of Piet Bloms 1984

Cube Houses across the square from the

Markthal where the apartments cubes

are balanced on their corners.

Can such a series of discrete objects make

a city? I still believe that is possible if they

are close together. It is a very strange city

and wouldnt work everywhere but yes.

It is contextual in another way. In Rotterdam

you can only connect through diversity.

The neighbouring buildings of the

Laurenskwartier are equally doing their

own crazy thing from Piet Bloms cubes

andwitchs hat apartment tower to Group

Asfractured facade office block at Blaak 8and Hans Kollhoffs pedimented Statendam

apartments. Immediately to the south of the

Markthal is Kees Christiaanses Jenga office

stack (Blaak 31), an HQ for law firm Loyens

& Loeff. Another wayward pile is planned

for the markets northern flank. Its a pigs

ear of planning as novelty form making.

Maas defends the monumentality of

theMarkthals pumped up architecture

asanintriguing contradiction. He argues

thatmassing the components of the brief

inalarge-scale building has had a multiplier

effect, with the plaza in front having a nicer

atmosphere, and more shoppers now in

theoutdoor market, as well as in the coveredhall. Thats an optimistic perspective but

certainly the additional big buildings and

thelandscaping and tree-planting planned

forthe Binnenrotte frontage this March can

only help begin if not entirely successfully

to contain its brutal enormity.

For Maas, his building does exactly

whatitsays on the tin communicating its

functions directly to a viewer who doesnt

need to be a sophisticate to understand it.

It is unashamedly populist and aims to

improve Rotterdams cheap food culture

without becoming decadent or elitist.

A minority of the stallholders have come

inside where the rents are similar to thosefor the pitches outdoors, but the stallholder

must be open seven days a week. Clubbing

outlets together in this way, suggests Maas,

will help small businesses survive in the

face of the retail giants.

Theres an expectation here that a city

with great market halls will have a great

food culture and it seems to apply whether

looking at Madrid, Melbourne or Montreal.

5. (Previous spread)the full Dali-esque gloryof the vegetal vault6. The high-end stalls area sedate affair comparedwith the rough and readycharm of a normal market7. View from one of theflats in the vault structure8. Mid-level walkwayoverlooking the market

ArchitectMVRDVPhotographsScagliola/Brakkee

Markthal,Rotterdam,The NetherlMVRDV

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The reality can be entirely otherwise

though; Newcastles handsome Grainger

Market or the Kirkgate covered market

in Leeds (Europes largest), do not seem to be

noticeably improving their host communities

cuisine, for all their authenticity.The Markthal doesnt, however, even feel

like a market despite Maass claim that some

20 per cent of stallholders are collectives

orfamily businesses. It is essentially a food

court. A great many of the stalls are places to

eat sushi, waffles, tapas, fresh juices while

the majority of others sell luxury goods such

as chocolates, nuts and European charcuterie.

Only one greengrocer was spotted on my

visit and that the te where the fruit looks

hand polished. A few chain stores have

crept in which Maas accepts as the price for

reducing the developers risk in this untested

(in a Dutch context) concept.

Admittedly, this trend is also true ofestablished markets such as Barcelonas

tourist-infested La Boqueria and the just

refurbished central market of Florence

each of which, like the Markthal, has a

cooking school. And, increasingly Londons

Borough market is similarly more about

destination shopping and dining. But it is still

hard to see how the Markthal significantly

adds to Rotterdams food culture beyond

avery visible statement of investment in the

idea of it. Maybe, says Maas, the dramatic

space gives attention to peoples role

[in changing this culture]. Its intelligence is

not always clear. The below-ground servicing

and sterility of the market itself means though

that there is none of that characteristic

market buzz and messiness. For one thing

that would be inimical to the residents

looking down from above.

For all these drawbacks, the numbers

suggest that the Markthal is a commercialsuccess. As have been the apartments above;

half were built for sale and almost all (in

marked contrast to OMAs half-deserted De

Rotterdam) have found buyers including most

of the 24 penthouses. This despite each unit

having an exceptionally deep plan and their

market hall ends being undeniably gloomy

with their reliance on borrowed light from

the halls glazed ends. The wilful shape of

thebuilding also makes for some me

awkward internal spaces. One duple

penthouse visited has a large window

room with a raked floor on its lower

and two bedrooms of its three lookin

its small light-well. The suggestion tthe lightless space could be used as a

home cinema becomes less far-fetche

when you hear that one buyer is com

two penthouses and talking of buildi

a swimming pool.

There is curiosity value then in M

immovable feast with its seemingly c

jolie laideproportions and it has bro

vigour to a corner of the city demand

it.But for all its noodle-headed re-sh

andarchitectural gymnastics, Rotter

hasfailed repeatedly in its mission t

urbanistically fit. Replacing the starv

of post-war zoning with a stodgy die

of instant icons all those big-budgecantilevers and weirdly wobbly facad

has hindered as much as helped.

Is the Markthals alternative, say

of well-considered blocks and a mark

similar to that built in Ghent by Rob

Daemand Marie-Jos Van Hee (AR F

2013). really such plain fare by comp

Rotterdams grand gestures are lead

toadanger of recreating la Grande B

There is curiosity value inMVRDVs immovable feastwith its seemingly calculated

jolie laideproportions and ithas brought vigour to a cornerof the city demanding it

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