17 April 2015 – What makes a market?

I made a few postings at the beginning of January (3,6, 8)  about Rotterdam’s new Markthal where I questionned how much food shopping was actually going on – I have just come across a post on the Sustainable Food Trust site by Zoe Nielsen who makes similar observations. She compares the Markthal in Rotterdam with the new Foodhallen in Amsterdam, housed in a renovated tram depot which also includes a public library, an independent nine-screen cinema, a nursery, a hairdresser and a number of other small independent businesses and offices.

There are some nice photographs of the markets and she concludes that ‘while the Markthal’s top-down approach to the development of a lucrative indoor market falls flat, the Foodhallen with its cheerful chaos and packed crowds feels as though it’s already a local institution – despite a soft opening and almost no PR. The approach seems simple enough: a regenerated building, an effort to become part of the community rather than transform it, and a total dedication to working only with independent vendors‘. Sounds like it’s worth a visit.

You can read the full article here

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