Harlingen Market Hall
A covered market hall with a café and a roof terrace on a tidal harbour quay.
Harlingen, Netherlands · 2005–2008
Our first building: a covered market hall of 640 square metres on an old harbour quay in Harlingen, built for a developer opening up the town’s tidal harbour, with a café at the quay end and a terrace on the roof.
We borrowed the plan from a fish shed: one column-free hall under a folded zinc roof, glazed on all four sides, that fills with stalls on market days and stays open as a café and a sheltered place to sit for the rest of the week. The roof terrace looks over the harbour mouth to the Wadden Sea. The hall stands on the quay itself, its floor set above the highest water level on record, and its plant room and cold stores sit 1.8 metres below quay level behind a watertight wall. It has opened every day since 2008.
Images: Instinctual Group.
