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 m2retail space, 1,600 m2horeca 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]
Artworkedit
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 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]
Archaeological siteedit
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]
^"Gekibbel in Overvloed - Atelier ACW". atelieracw.tumblr.com. Retrieved 2015-04-06.
^"In Rotterdam is zojuist het grootste kunstwerk ter wereld geopend | The Creators Project". thecreatorsproject.vice.com. 19 May 2014. Retrieved 2015-04-06.
^"Markthal Rotterdam". markthalrotterdam.nl. Archived from the original on 2015-04-16. Retrieved 2015-04-06.
^"'De Koopboog beste bijnaam voor Markthal' - AD.nl". ad.nl. Retrieved 2015-04-06.
^"Column: Kappen met die bijnamen | RTV Rijnmond". rijnmond.nl. Retrieved 2015-04-06.
^Ir. Dick Wilschut, DRS. Maaike M. Sier (29 August 2012). "Archeologie: een geotechnische uitdaging" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 2015-04-06.