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Building a hybrid

Last Updated 16 October 2014, 15:26 IST

Dutch architect Winy Maas’ habit of mixing functions may have reached its apex with the latest creation. Douglas Heingartner attempts to decode his style.

Since co-founding MVRDV, the Dutch architecture firm, in 1993, Winy Maas, 55, has built one oddball hybrid after another: an expo building with a forest on an upper floor, a library shaped like a mountain of books. 

His habit of mixing functions may have reached its apex in the Markthal, a horseshoe-shape building in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that combines a food hall the size of a football field with 228 apartments around it. The 175-million-euro project, which opened last week, evolved out of new European hygiene regulations that require fresh-food markets to move indoors.

The 12-story building contains about 100 food stalls, 20 shops, eight  restaurants, a supermarket, an underground parking garage and escalators that display the archaeological treasures found during the site’s excavation. 

Excerpts from an interview with the master architect:

The city of Rotterdam wanted an icon and certainly got one. You have said you have mixed feelings about that word.

The big spending of past generations on buildings has led to a condemnation of the word “icon.” There’s a tendency to talk about icons as if they are terrible things. But buildings that like to invent, to innovate and show leadership are still needed. 

It’s not only about size, it’s about what the buildings do, and how many people see that and are inspired.

About half the apartments have windows that overlook the market, and the 24 penthouses have glass panels in the floor. What will it be like to live above an open market, with its smells and sounds?

It’s pioneering for a certain group of people. I don’t say it’s for everybody. The ones that choose it are excited about it. Some people have that in their genes. 

Our calculations show that the smells won’t be dominant and that the sound level is sufficiently absorbed. The windows above make the relationship between the domestic space and the working space below even more human. It’s also more challenging and maybe even confronting.

Was the building conceived to be so approachable, with apartments varying in size and price, and even the stones on the market floor the same as those in the city’s sidewalks?The developer comes from The Hague, which is more posh. They wanted a white marble facade, like fancy bathroom tiles, because they thought that meant higher quality. I said, “No, man, you can’t do that. They will kill you here if you do that.” 

And it’s very ugly also. Rotterdam is different than The Hague. It’s more welcoming to more generations and more classes. So we chose a material that is already Rotterdam-ish, one that people already appreciated. It also turns the market into a wider and a better product.

What inspired the food-themed artwork on the ceiling, made up of 4,500 aluminium panels?

At first we wanted LED lights in the ceiling, but that was too expensive. Then I went to Rome, to the Sistine Chapel, and said, “OK, why can’t we make something like that?” I sent postcards to the client, and that got the discussion started. It cost more money, but it was a good idea

Was there a eureka moment when you designed the Markthal?

It was a competition, so you need to be different. I took a model of a U-shape building, with two slabs of houses and a five-meter space between them, and turned it upside down. 

That initial sketch helped to convince the government to say, “Yeah, maybe that could be the concept to escape from this contradiction: On one hand, you want to give the building to the people, but it’s not intimate, it’s on a huge scale. By flipping the design, you can suddenly make an intimate and lively square.” 

We thought, “Why don’t we make it almost like a cathedral where you proudly show food?” Maybe that was the eureka moment. That was 10 years ago. And now it’s becoming real.

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(Published 16 October 2014, 15:26 IST)

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