“Flabbergasted” was the initial gut response of City of Rotterdam planner Emiel Arends, upon reviewing MVRDV‘s initial design concepts for the city’s new Markthal. “It was like, what are you doing?” he says, recalling a design competition won by the local firm a decade before the building’s eventual 2014 completion.
The initial sense of disbelief stemmed from the fact that Arends and many of his peers at the City of Rotterdam expected the architects to work within a well-established market hall typology common across Europe — a collection of vendor booths and stations sheltered by a canopy. The brief also called for the Markthal to be paired with an adjacent residential building (and an underground parking garage), reflecting the municipality’s goal of enlivening and intensifying Rotterdam’s east end.
Working with local developers Provast, MVRDV came back with something radically different. The local designers envisioned an inverted U-shaped structure, emerging from the ground like the partially buried head of a tennis racquet. In lieu of a market hall paired with an adjoining apartment complex, the design integrated residential space into the marquee roof structure itself, with deep apartments that overlook both the airy market hall interior and the city of Rotterdam.
Beyond the unorthodox shape, the design also envisioned a bold marriage of architecture and art — a giant, colourful fresco that would wrap both the market hall interior and the building envelope. And while the city-facing side of the mural was eventually shelved, the Markthal’s interior saw one of the world’s largest artworks knit into the design. Yet, once Arends and his colleagues evaluated the plans and construction eventually kicked off, the project retained a curiously low profile. “In any other city, that would have led to an instant protest movement against the zeppelin hangar covered in a gigantic fruit wallpaper. But not in Rotterdam. Public awareness started only once the construction became noisy,” recalls MVRDV partner Jan Knikker.
Nonetheless, a marvel was quietly taking shape inside. Spanning some 11,000 square metres, Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam’s Horn of Plenty is a collage of 3D images of fruit, vegetables, fish, flowers and insects printed on 4,500 perforated aluminum panels. The perforations not only reduce noise but allow light to filter through the image, making a vibrant, ethereal ambiance. The striking fresco is bookended by a pair of glass facades, with thin window-frames like the strings of a tennis racquet. In contrast, there’s nothing overly unusual about the grid layout of the various businesses on the ground floor below, which range from coffee vendors to chocolatiers to a variety of ethnic restaurants.
For the designers, however, the aesthetic spectacle was paired with economic pragmatism. “If we wanted to win, we would need to be a bit more daring, but still keep a sane and business-like approach,” says MVRDV’s Valentina Bencic. To that end, the integration of residential and civic spaces into a single 12-storey structure paid dividends.
“We were able to create more apartments — and with their creation, pay for this building,” says Bencic, with the walls of the market hall doing double duty as apartments, and the roof occupied by a cluster of penthouse suites. Such considerations factored into creating a building with apartments and condos wrapping not only around but over the market hall and with the base of the structure flared to accommodate more residential units.
All told, Markthal’s residential component comprises 102 condominiums, 102 rental apartments, and 24 penthouse suites, the inclusion of which was facilitated by the inverted u-shape design. Meanwhile, the market hall itself accommodates 96 food stalls, as well as 20 larger retail units (including restaurants and cafés), a lower level supermarket, and a 1,200-car underground garage. True to the Dutch passion for two-wheeled transportation, the building is also paired with a substantial indoor-outdoor bicycle garage.
The robust mix of uses also introduced new vitality to the surrounding neighbourhood. “Markthal has a gravitational pull that has brought back liveliness to the area,” notes MVRDV’s Valentina Bencic. “It has been really interesting to see how businesses on the adjacent streets have gotten a second life.” And while the Markthal itself now draws close to eight million visitors a year — a staggering figure for a city of just 650,000 — the marquee destination sits on a broad public plaza, which is home to a thriving, twice-weekly outdoor market of some 450 stalls and thousands of visitors.
This adjacency also tempers some of the Markthal’s perceived shortcomings. Like popular markets — and even urban centres writ large — around the world, the tenant mix is one that gradually evolved from independant grocers towards a greater emphasis on tourist-friendly restaurants and prepared food. According to Bencic, “You used to be able to go and purchase a bunch of mangos for three euros.” Now, however, the Markthal is arguably more of a food hall than a true public market, though one with an eclectic, culturally diverse tenant mix that reflects Rotterdam’s increasingly cosmopolitan population.
Over a decade after its opening, the Rotterdam Markthal is an icon of the city. And while thousands of photos and videos are readily available at the click of a button, there’s nothing like seeing it in person. Depending on the time of the day and the location of the sun, the inner beauty of Markthal jumps out even from a distance. It’s not just the striking mural — the interplay of light and shadow, and the reflections and refractions of surrounding buildings all tease the eye.
Stepping inside, a sense of motion pervades. On my recent visit, I had the distinct feeling of being inside a living artwork; an immersive 3D experience without the headset. It’s won over at least a few of the initial skeptics. As Arends puts it, the architects “came up with a concept that is fun and playful,” with a building that ultimately speaks to “the magic of MVRDV — to have a weird concept that actually works.”
For MVRDV, meanwhile, the completion of the Markthal sparked what Bencic describes as a “big bang.” Within two years, the firm doubled in size from 80 to approximately 160 employees. Today, MVRDV is a leading global design practice, employing a staff of over 300, with offices in New York, Berlin, Paris and Shanghai. And in its hometown of Rotterdam, the Markthal continues to draw people in by the thousands.
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