This market was inaugurated in 1888 in an area of expansion in the Eixample district. The author of the building is f the architect Antoni Rovira i Trias, and it is a sample of the technological possibilities of the moment: the standardisation and repetition of structural elements of iron and glass.
The remodeling of the spaces and the structure is carried out in a building that has been left between partitions in an already consolidated urban area, facing one of the busiest roads in the city. With the rehabilitation, a careful and respectful modernisation of a space in use is sought, in accordance with current spatial and social needs.
Rovira i Trias thought of the market as the centre of a fabric that had to collect a series of commercial activities. This idea, which was lost over time, is resumed by returning the original transparency and permeability with this intervention. Glass walls are recovered and incorporated on the two façades of the building and the iron structure and the ceramic roof tiles are remodeled. Two basements are built for parking and for loading and unloading.
The refurbishment had to be able to reactivate the block and its commercial function in the neighbourhood. Time seems to confirm this process and the recovery of the market as an element of urban cohesion. The project was also concerned with communicating the building with the contemporary city by improving access and the equipment's ability to act as a public and central space. This confirmation is reiterated 10 years after the completion of the renovation of the market, when the project received the Decade Award in 2008 as the best building built in Barcelona in 1998.
