Santa-Caterina Market, originally dating back to 1848, is based in the heart of Barcelona, which has recently been renovated taking seven years to develop. The new roof for the market was designed by Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue of EMBT Arquitectes.
As Barcelona is the city of Gaudi, the architecture of Santa-Caterina Market has been produced to duplicate the surrounding urban culture of surrealism, bringing the city together with its range of colours.
The multicoloured waved roof contains around 325,000 different geometrically ingenious glazed stone tiles by Ceramica Cumella. These tiles were created with high temperatures being fired at them, from Seville, giving off a glaze that reflects its neighbouring buildings.
The interior of the Santa-Caterina Food Market houses around 100 stalls with three floors, selling all types of food. Like the roof, the interior has a glow of various colours from the fruit and vegetables that brightens the market up inside.
Architects were given this site, Santa-Caterina Market and had many options of what they could change it into but decided to keep it a market but make it more ambitious and eye-catching. When generating the structure and form of the roof, each laminated panel had been cut by hand, as the computers didn’t have the ability to create the curves that were required.
The design of Santa-Caterina Market’s roof is simple but very effective, keeping in touch with Barcelona’s style of architecture and culture.
 |
 |
    |
