Public Market in Sant Adrià de Besòs
Nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Award 2017.
The new Public Market in Sant Adrià de Besòs tries to offer a contemporary reinterpretation of the traditional Mediterranean market space while responding to present functional requirements and accommodating a series of additional programmes. The proposal presents itself as a covered plaza that adds a new form of collective space to the recuperation of the old Market Square.
Public markets constitute privileged spaces of exchange in the city and they can be understood as built extensions of public space. The new Public Market in Sant Adrià de Besòs is located in the historic centre of the city and the demolition of the previous market building offered a unique opportunity to reclaim the space of the old Market Square.
The new market tries to offer a covered plaza to the city. Thus, the building has been designed to achieve a great continuity with the city and the feeling of public space entering the market and capturing its life.
Once the decision of creating a covered plaza is assumed as the driving idea of the project, the efforts are centred on the design of the roof. We proposed a thick roof: thick enough to house an additional programme not required in the competition brief. This roof/first floor contains the supermarket, the market offices and a space with a built-in kitchen to accommodate lectures and cooking courses.
Four large skylights cross this level and provide natural light to the market, which occupies the ground floor. Additionally, there are two underground levels. The upper one houses the loading area, spaces for storage and cold storage, changing rooms and other ancillary spaces of the market, while the lower one houses a car park.
