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Great Public Markets
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Publishing date: 18.07.2008 |
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An historical approach to contemporary “retail environments”. Article excerpted from, Public Markets by Helen Tangires, a Norton/ Library of Congress Visual Sourcebook, 2008. Architecture Week, July 9, 2008
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The activity of buying and selling food has shaped our cities and towns for centuries, since an urban population by nature depends on others for agricultural production. At the heart of this activity stands the public market — the buildings and spaces in which vegetables, meat, and other commodities intended for human consumption are sold by diverse persons from numerous spaces or stalls, all under a common authority.
Although a public market need not necessarily be located on public land or owned by a public entity, it has public goals and creates a public space — features that distinguish it from a roadside stand, grocery store, supermarket, or other independently owned food retailing establishment.
It also has the unique status of being the most enduring, universal form of urban food marketing and distribution — with roots as old as cities themselves.
Defining the Boundaries of Exchange
Markets first appeared in history as specifically appointed places of exchange, usually bounded by lakes, rivers, forests, or boundary stones. Such meeting places were neutral territory, or thresholds of exchange, where differing groups gathered peacefully for their mutual benefit. Pillars, posts, crosses, and other landmarks designated these sanctioned places.
In antiquity, the official marketplace was located in the civic center — a large open square reserved for all public functions.
The civic center, or agora as it was known in the ancient Greek world, served as the site not only for trade and commerce, but also for administrative, legislative, judicial, social, and religious activities.
The location of markets in the agora was convenient for city dwellers, vendors bringing goods by road or water, and officials responsible for overseeing the markets. Vendors sold from temporary wooden booths in the open air marketplace or from rented shops in covered colonnades known as stoas.
The forum, counterpart in imperial Rome to the agora, likewise served as the principal place of commerce. The marketplaces of antiquity are the predecessors of the great piazzas and squares in Europe, and some have been in continuous use, such as the Piazza Erbe in Verona, Italy, located on the site of a Roman forum.
In addition to civic centers, streets also provided practical locations for markets, since they were already publicly owned and they provided natural boundaries. Usually the street of choice was not only wide enough for both a market and a thoroughfare, but also oriented along a prominent north-south or east-west axis of a grid plan for the convenience of farmers and tradespeople bringing their goods.
Some cities allocated different streets to different markets in order to rationalize trade by type of commodity; and they distributed multiple markets geographically, usually by ward or neighborhood, so that the markets did not compete with each other.
The designation of particular streets and squares for market purposes fostered the development of entire commercial districts. Markets in the Islamic world, known as bazaars or souks, were and still are cities in themselves, encompassing sometimes hundreds of shops and covered streets housing commercial trades and crafts, in addition to warehouses, inns, eating establishments, public baths, and other institutions that support the market.
Market Typologies
The desire to maintain an orderly trading environment and offer protection from the elements has led to a variety of market types through the ages.
The most ubiquitous and consistent type is the open-air marketplace. Usually devoid of permanent structures, it is defined physically by the boundaries of a public square, and in temporal terms by specific market days and hours. Shelter may come from trees or from awnings, umbrellas, and other temporary fixtures provided by vendors.
Street markets share similar kinds of boundaries and definitions with the open-air marketplace, although they tend to assume a more linear form.
Beyond the boundaries of the marketplace are street vendors, whose ambulatory privileges permit them to sell staples and ready-made food in restricted places. These markets on the move have developed their own type of "structures" necessitated by their mobility and the absence of permanent facilities.
Public markets may also operate on an open ground floor of a public building, such as a courthouse or town hall. This form has its origins in medieval Europe, where a combined town hall and market was designed for trading on an open, arcaded ground floor, above which stood one or more stories for administration of the local government. In this type of structure, marketing is secondary to the main purpose of the building.
The freestanding shed is the most common type of market structure, and one that lends itself well to location in a street or square. The shed has been a standard market type throughout the world since antiquity. Open or partially closed, it consists of arches, columns, or piers supporting a low pitched gable roof, sometimes with projecting eaves to increase the amount of covered trading space.
Sheds provide minimal protection from the elements for the least cost and can be erected quickly relative to more substantial structures. Sometimes they are built as a string of separate structures that allow for cross traffic and for separating the sale of food types, as in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Charleston, South Carolina; or they might take the form of colonnades arranged in a square around an open court — a style with antique origins and one that is still popular in the Hispanic world.
In part, the shed owes its popularity to the fact that builders are familiar with construction techniques that employ a modular bay system for similar structures, such as barns and churches, in order to achieve the desired enclosure. In addition, the multiple entrances make the facility attractive and accessible to patrons coming from any direction; the shed's openness facilitates air circulation and the unloading of goods; and it is easy to wash down at the end of the market day.
The enclosed market house was the type of choice in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Coinciding with the imperative to improve the flow of traffic and to modernize urban space was a drive to eliminate the apparent chaos and disorder of the open-air market.
Architects in 19th-century France were active in designing new buildings to rationalize and contain marketing. The market in Nevers typifies the enclosed market house popular in France in the early 19th century — a series of rectangular wood or masonry structures with clerestories, arranged in a square around an open court with a fountain in the center.
British architects also looked for new strategies to contain markets physically, while encouraging the supply and demand for fresh food. The London-based architect Charles Fowler (1792-1867), for example, transformed the open-air market at Covent Garden into a fashionable complex of arcades and shops. The new Covent Garden Market, designed in 1828 to 1830, had become London's principal market for fruits and vegetables. Fowler created a unified complex of three parallel buildings surrounded by arcades, connected by corner lodges for eating houses and specialty shops. Horses and carts occupied the open space between the buildings.
Developments in iron-and-glass construction continued to foster the preference for enclosed market houses. The French state, in support of its iron industry, encouraged architects to consider ways to incorporate iron into their structures. Architects responded initially by using iron for wall ties, roofs, floors, and interior columns.
The most daring use of iron for construction began with Les Halles, the principal market in Paris, designed by Victor Baltard (1805-1874) and Felix-Emmanuel Callet (1791-1854). Baltard and Callet conceived of the market as a series of modular pavilions with exposed cast-iron exterior and interior supports.
The functional, aesthetic, and economical qualities of iron-and-glass markets inspired generations of architects and engineers to improve on the design. One aim was the development of roof truss systems to provide the desired height for light and air, without the need for interior supports, since unobstructed floor space was highly desirable in markets.
Helen Tangires holds a Ph.D. in American studies from The GeorgeWashingtonUniversity. She is a frequent contributor to books and journals on urban foodways and is the author of Public Markets and Civic Culture in Nineteenth-Century America (2003). Dr. Tangires is also the administrator of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
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