Market Hall (Rotterdam)

Markthal
Markthal
The Markthal in 2015.
General information
Status	Completed
Location	Binnenrotte, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Coordinates	51°55′12″N 4°29′13″E / 51.92000°N 4.48694°E / 51.92000; 4.48694
Construction started	October 2009
Completed	October 2014
Opening	1 October 2014[6]
Cost	€178,000,000 [2]
Height
Roof	40 m (131 ft)
Top floor	37 m (121 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	11 4 below ground
Lifts/elevators	26 [3][4]
Design and construction
Architect(s)	MVRDV[1]
Developer	Provast [7]
Structural engineer	Royal HaskoningDHV[5]

The Markthal (English: Market Hall) is a residential and office building with a market hall underneath, located in Rotterdam.^[8] The building was opened on October 1, 2014, by Queen Máxima of the Netherlands.^[9] Besides the large market hall, the complex houses 228 apartments, 4,600 m² retail space, 1,600 m² horeca and an underground 4-storey parking garage with a capacity of over 1200 cars.^[10]

The Markthal was designed by architectural firm MVRDV. The grey nature stone building has an archwise structure like a horseshoe. The building has a glass facade on both sides; these are made up of smaller glass windows. The smaller windows are mostly squared and around 1485 millimeters wide. All of these are hung around a structure of steel cables, 34 metres high and 42 metres wide, which makes it the largest glass-window cable structure in Europe. Each facade has 26 vertical and 22 horizontal cables. The facade was designed and installed by Octatube^[11]

The inside of the building is adorned with an 11.000 m² artwork by Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam,^[12] named Hoorn des Overvloeds (Horn of Plenty).^[13] The artwork shows strongly enlarged fruits, vegetables, seeds, fish, flowers and insects.^[14]

The artwork was selected out of 9 international candidates.^[15] The work was made using digital 3D-techniques. This enormous file of 1,47 terabytes needed special servers, which are also used by Pixar Studios for making animated movies.^[16] The digital 3D-animation was separated in 4000 pieces and then printed on perforated aluminum panels.^[17] The 4000 aluminum panels are now on the inside of the hall. Right after the opening in 2014, the artwork got a lot of attention from around the world.^[18][19][20] Some called it The largest artwork in the world or The Sistine Chapel of Rotterdam.^[21]

• The 4-storey parking garage of the Markthal is the largest in the center of Rotterdam.^[22]
• The Markthal was one of the first buildings in the world that could be seen by augmented reality.^[23] By using the application UAR, made by the NAi, users could see 3D-models of the building, and how it was going to look.
• A possible nickname of the Markthal is Koopboog. This name is a reference to the horseshoe shape of the hall and also refers to the nearby Koopgoot.^[24][25]

The Markthal is built on top of a fourteenth-century buried village in the Polder of Westnieuwland. This polder was surrounded by water and dykes to protect the polder during high-tide.^[26] There were a few houses and farms in this polder, also at the site of the Markthal.

During the building of the Markthal, a tenth-century farm was found 7 metres under the ground. Within the house were two stoves and a few fireplaces. The farm was part of a village before Rotterdam, named Rotta, after the river Rotte. The inhabitants of Rotta were farmers, craftsmen and traders. Earlier, a small settlement from the fourteenth-century was found on the site.^[27]

Several foundations on the site are now exhibited next to the central staircases underneath the Markthal.^[28]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Markthal (Rotterdam).

• Official website