Located in the center of Rotterdam, Markthal is the first covered food market of the Netherlands. There, visitors are able to shop, eat, live and park their car, all underneath the tall arch of 40 meters height. Completed in October 2014, the building provides Rotterdam with a new urban typology, a hybrid of market and housing. Markthal is an energy efficient building and has been awarded a BREEAM Very Good rating.
Markthal contains 228 apartments among which 24 penthouses. Every apartment has a view either towards the historic Laurenskwartier, and towards the market through windows or a glass floor made of sound and smell proof triple glazing.
With a total surface of 95.000 m², the building comprises 96 fresh food stalls and shop units, and the ground and first floor accommodate 20 retail units, restaurants and cafés. A supermarket is located on the 1st underground level. The underground car park has a total of 1.200 parking lots.
The open sides of the Markthal closed to prevent rain and cold from entering, was designed to be as transparent as possible by opting for a single glazed cable net façade. Comparable to a tennis racket, pre-stressed steel cables create a suspended net in-between which the panes are hung. The exterior facade is clad in grey natural stone, the same used for the floor and the surrounding public space, so the emphasis lays on the colorful interior.
The mural ‘Cornucopia’ by artists Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam has a surface of 11.000 m². “Cornucopia” shows oversized images of market produce available at the market, while the flowers and insects refer to the work of Dutch still life masters from the 17th century. The image was printed onto perforated aluminum panels, and then attached to acoustic panels for noise control.