Architecture Rotterdam #4: Markthallen (Market Hall), and the largest artwork of Netherlands
Market place, apartment building and largest artwork in one
There might be more indoor markets around the world, but Rotterdam's Market Hall is the first to have an indoor market area and residency units in one. Plus it hosts Netherlands's largest artwork ever, the Hoorn van Overvloed (Horn of Plenty) by Arno Coenen en Iris Roskam.
Horseshoe
The building has the shape of a horse-shoe, with 228 apartments covering a 4600 m2 market area. On both sides the arch is closed by a wall of glass, and with their 34 metres high and 42 metres these walls are the largest glass window cable structure of Europe.
Shopping
There's a large variety of food and drinks available in the market area. Prices are a bit above average, but in general there are a lot of quality products and you can expect to find some delicacies to your taste. In the middle of the hall there are escalators, leading down to some more shops and parking area.
Coffee with a view
If you're in Rotterdam and looking for a place to enjoy your coffee, then on top of one of the market place units is a great choice. As these area's are elevated, they give a great view on the crowd passing by below. And allow for the awesome spacious feeling of these halls to sink in.
Horn of Plenty
The artwork on the inside of the horse-shoe shape is the largest of Netherlands. It's 11.000 m2 of fruits, insects, fish, vegetables and flowers, separated in 4000 pieces and printed on aluminium panels. My favourite part of it is this pink flower down below. Definitely the largest flower I ever saw.
Feeling at home
While looking at the ceiling, did you realise you're having a view into people's homes? The apartments in the horse-shoe shape have windows looking down on the market area. If you like the view so much you would want it with every coffee for the rest of your life, you can always consider buying a home here.
Architecture Rotterdam
When people talk about the Netherlands, they always mention our capitol Amsterdam, but are much less aware of our second largest city Rotterdam. Which was hit very hard by World War II, and has a lot of modern art compared to other Dutch cities. There's a lot of great architecture here, and with these posts I hope to bring it to your attention!
Earlier posts in this series:
All content is created by me, and Steemit original.
Camera used: Canon G7X
I'm curious as to what the interior of those apartments looks like.
Some of them are available on airbnb, so you can have a look inside :)
Damn!!!This is literally the best wall art I have ever seen .Thank you @amritadeva for putting this up.
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Architecture and visual arts combined in perfect harmony :) This is amazing @amritadeva, it's good to see this building in your perspective. Cheers!
Thanks for sharing it to #archisteem & #photocircle
Thank you so much! Your support means a lot :).
Passed by the market hall when I was there, but that time was around 6pm-ish and the security no longer allow me to go in 😅 I’m amazed with the bold structure with the generous volumetric space for market purpose. A comfortable ‘greenhouse’ to run the market all four seasons.
I'm sorry they didn't let you in! But it's nice to know you've been to Rotterdam :). Especially from inside, the hall feels quite enormous, and with all the stalls there's a lot to explore. Maybe you'll make it another time.
Yup, that was my first time to Europe and it was near winter. So I thought it was still daytime while my watch already showed 6pm plus... haha a blunder.
Hey @amritadeva, thank you for sharing this amazing market hall! We would like to thank you for supporting @archisteem by continuously using our #archisteem tag. The Archisteem is all about forming a community that believes and strives for the betterment of the future built environment and we are proud to have you on board! Looking forward to more of your posts soon. Steem on!
In the meantime, we are currently running a project – 1001 Places to Remember. We would like to invite you to join the project as well by just submitting a story. You can read here to know more about it.