For eighty years, local residents passed by the building without ever being allowed inside. The Central Market Hall, a monumental 16,000-square-meter building built in the early 20th century as a central wholesale market, was exclusively the domain of food professionals. That is now changing. After restoration and repurposing by BOEi, it will become an open place for anyone who lives, works or just wants to look around the neighborhood.
The NYA Festival is one of the first major cultural programming to make its home here. This festival is a tribute to North African culture, with music, art, flavors and stories from that community. Exactly the kind of program that fits with what BOEi has in mind: a place that connects with the people who already live here. Because the neighborhoods around the Market Hall, Bos en Lommer, Landlust and the Staadsliedenbuurt, are diverse and lively. The hall should reflect that.
BOEi is the non-profit social owner and has given a new future to more than a hundred monuments in the Netherlands over the past 25 years. For the Central Market Hall, they are working with architect Mecanoo, who drew the Market Quarter Master Plan. On the north side of the site will be a new, more compact Food Center. On the south side, new housing and a city square are rising, called Market Quarter West. And on top of the building will be the largest solar panel roof in the city. The project is made possible by the City of Amsterdam, the Province of North Holland, the Friends Lottery and the Friends of BOEi Foundation.
A building that was closed to the city for eighty years is now becoming one of the most ambitious repurposing projects the city has seen.
The Central Market Hall is accessible via what is described as the largest red carpet in the Netherlands: a pedestrian bridge from the Food Center Amsterdam. Those arriving on foot or by bike can walk right into the site. The Market Hall is also part of the European LIFE BIOMATINE consortium, which is working on insulation with biobased materials in historic buildings. That project expects to avoid 965 tons of CO2 emissions from 556 social housing units. A building that was closed to the city for 80 years is now becoming one of the most ambitious repurposing projects the city has seen.