Photographs : Tuncer Çakmaklı, Aziz Safi, Seyfettin Bal & Photographer: Gürkan Akay

Bursa was the first capital of the Ottoman Empire and is today the center of manufacturing in Turkey, leading the field in the automotive and textile industries.
But the city is also a natural wonder: it sits at the base of the 2.000 meter-high Uludağ mountain, which is the location of the country’s first ski resort, and the city is also host to natural springs whose waters have long been thought to be therapeutic. Moreover, the fertile grounds around Bursa produce some of the country’s best produce.
The municipality of Bursa required a new, modern facility for the wholesale trade of fruits and vegetables, as well as separate facility for fish and other seafoods. The building would consolidate these commercial activities, providing the city with a centralized control point from which to monitor the Bursa’s food supply.
The essential social function of a market is to fairly and transparently negotiate the quality and price of consumer goods through the complex interactions of many producers, brokers, and retailers together within a common space. By bringing these encounters together under one roof, the full extent of supply, demand, and quality can be accessed by all parties to the transaction at once, resulting in the most accurate evaluation of value.
While markets were once the great gathering places of a community, functions such as wholesale trade are more and more frequently relegated to architecturally insignificant, anonymous warehouse spaces: a worldwide trend with negative repercussions for both the cultural traditions of trade, as well as for the individual labor’s experience of work. The design of Bursa’s wholesale greengrocer’s and fishmonger’s markets, on the other hand, maintain the idiom of the high, vaulted bazaar, connecting the new buildings symbolically and functionally with long-standing Central Asian architectural and cultural traditions. The complex patterns of vehicle, material, and pedestrian traffic are carefully coordinated within fluid, elliptical shapes, which in turn are bordered by brokers’ offices. The rational form of the 350 meter-long greengrocer’s market is designed to facilitate easy orientation, efficient exchange, and optimal routing of foodstuffs from suppliers to retailers and restaurateurs – all of which keeps down transaction costs. But it is also a good place to work: an animated space and architecture that is representative of the energy and productivity of the laborers, as well as of the city of Bursa.
It should come as no surprise that the forms of the two buildings resemble stadiums: a market only works when goods are on display and transactions can be observed. The panoptical form is as appropriate to the activities of a market as to a football match. At the same time, the configuration of the naturally-ventilated spaces allows the municipality to ensure the efficient, safe distribution of food products to its citizens.
By consolidating the wholesale trade of produce and fish for the city of Bursa in a single location, the municipality is able to monitor the goods for quality and also to ensure that health regulations are followed.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The history of food markets goes back to “agora” and “stoa” of the ancient settlements. Along with the urbanization, the food needed for city-dwellers was brought to the city and presented in the marketplaces situated right at the most significant and populated urban spaces of the city. With their functional and architectural qualities, these marketplaces were the structures that gave an identity to urban architecture and urban life by the end of the last century. However today, through the opportunities of transportation, changing locations, getting renewed with spatial and functional solutions ended up with random, monotonous factory buildings all around the world. Eventually, by all these factors, the marketplaces gradually lost their identical value.

Outfacing these misconceptions, the Bursa Wholesale Market, while moving to the developing section of Bursa, not only offers a fresh solution to the functional dimension of the ‘marketplace’ but also made it into the colours of the city. Moreover, with its unique architectural structure, Bursa Wholesale Market provides emotional and perceptual satisfaction for the citizens.

The essential social function of a market is to fairly and transparently negotiate the quality and price of consumer goods through the complex interactions of many producers, brokers, and retailers together within a common space. By bringing these encounters together under one roof, the full extent of supply, demand, and quality can be accessed by all parties to the transaction at once, resulting in the most accurate evaluation of value.

The design of Bursa’s Wholesale Greengrocer’s and Fishmonger’s Market, on the other hand, maintain the idiom of the high, vaulted bazaar, connecting the new buildings symbolically and functionally with long-standing Central Asian architectural and cultural traditions.

MATERIALS, STRUCTURE AND CONSTRUCTION

By reinstalling steel into the architecture of the Wholesale Greengrocer’s Market, a sense of emotional satisfaction was also achieved in the place, apart from all the functional conventionality. A high area topped with a steel spanned arched roof provides a healthy and orderly atmosphere for trade, as it is with grand bazaars of authentic Turkish architecture. Steel allowed reflecting Greengrocer's Market's unique character; and therefore, was the most suitable material.

The building for the produce market is approximately 42.000 square meters, while that of the fish market is 2.500 square meters. In addition, there is a tower of 2.400 square meters that houses administrative offices, a restaurant, and a hotel. Outbuildings include a post for the gendarme as well as weigh stations and motor vehicle access control points.

The building structure realized with steel structure and prefabricated reinforced concrete. The roads and the floors are made of reinforced concrete and the surfaces are realized as walls made of glass and brick. The roof is covered with trapeze, galvanized and dyed sheet metal. Woodworks and doors were made of steel and the animated doors, aluminium material.
Illuminating realized with basic industrial products and daylight.

PROJECT SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT

The complex patterns of vehicle, material, and pedestrian traffic are carefully coordinated within fluid, elliptical shapes, which in turn are bordered by brokers’ offices. The rational form of the 350 meter-long greengrocer’s market is designed to facilitate easy orientation, efficient exchange, and optimal routing of foodstuffs from suppliers to retailers and restaurateurs – all of which keeps down transaction costs. But it is also a good place to work: an animated space and architecture that is representative of the energy and productivity of the laborers, as well as of the city of Bursa.
At the same time, the configuration of the naturally-ventilated spaces allows the municipality to ensure the efficient, safe distribution of food products to its citizens. By consolidating the wholesale trade of produce and fish for the city of Bursa in a single location, the municipality is able to monitor the goods for quality and also to ensure that health regulations are followed.

Without losing the significance and respect shown in building a city, we believe that urban life can exist by gracing the architectural dimension of the city, whose balance is about to perish, once again with diligence and accumulated modern knowledge, we believe that this building reinforces the existing historical background of the city of Bursa, with adding a new dimension to its functional requirements.