The Santa Caterina Market. an Architecture from the Language as a Trace

Abstract

The manuscript presents an analysis of the Santa Caterina market designed by Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue in terms of language. The research begins with the constructive elements used. The presence of the structure, the roof, the interior space and the slats on the fa & ccedil;ades establish a link with the markets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The study investigates the proposal according to a comparison with the Born market, a few blocks away from the market designed by Miralles and Tagliabue. However, the expression of rupture that establishes the transformation of these elements with respect to markets built during the industrial revolution leads to a turn in the analysis of the architecture of the Santa Caterina market itself, conceived as an expression of rupture. It refers to an approach in which neoliberalism has destroyed one of the city's oldest programmes, not only in terms of the system of buying and selling staple foods but also in terms of the human, social and cultural relations that generate this programme and urban through a language that is capable of transmitting itself from the architectural experience.