On this most auspicious day, the Netherlands' real-life royal, Queen Máxima, helped mark the grand opening of Markthal Rotterdam, the country's largest covered market, a gray horseshoe of seriously disorienting proportions designed by Rotterdam's own MVRDV. The mixed-use structure, which took five years to build, holds 228 housing units—ranging from 860 to 3,200 square feet—nestled within the massive arch, while more than 100 food stalls and restaurants are spread around the open (to the tune of 130 feet tall) public market in the space's airy core.
A massive mural by artists Arno Coenen and Iris Roskam covers the interior of the arch in vibrant, huge-scale grocery store buys, while Europe's "largest single-glazed cable net façades" enclose each side, defending the structure from the heaviest of storms. The site is expected to get up to seven million visitors per year.
· MVRDV-designed Markthal Housing + Market Hall Opens in Rotterdam [Design Boom]
· First Look: MVRDV Completes Largest Covered Market in the Netherlands [ArchDaily]
· All MVRDV posts [Curbed National]