MVRDV Bridge Rotterdam Market Gap

At 39 metres and with a mere 11 floors it may not be the tallest high-rise around, but plans for a new Market Hall to stand in Rotterdam certainly make it a unique building.

The 175 million euro project has been designed by MVRDV along with help from architecture firm Inbo and will stretch to cathedral-like proportions. The scheme runs 70 metres wide, and 100 metres long giving it a continuous footprint of 1.72 acres. What makes the project unique however is not the size of the plot it fills but rather the shap of the building that has been designed to have an interior like a huge barrel-vault, complete with day-glo art of foodstuffs.

The market space will fill the middle of the building, and each side will be two ten storey blocks 35 metres tall with the first two floors consisting of shops, and the upper levels filled by apartments. Connecting them together will be the final upper floor that will bridge the span 29.5 metres above the market hall.

Although this may sound massive, it is still shorter than the nave of Amiens Cathedral that manages to have a height of 42.3 metres despite being over 700 years old, putting the original cathedrals into perspective as engineering triumphs.

To help shape the exterior of the development external balconies run up the outside creating convex curves. In the inside the penthouses will have the rather unique feature of windows set in their floors meaning any voyeur with a long enough telephoto lens should be able to get the perfect skirt upshot from almost 100 feet under.

Groundwork is now underway on the project which has an opening date for 2014, and once complete should prove to be something of an attraction for tourists looking for a slightly different shopping experience to the usual dingy places such markets are found in.