The floating marketplace of San Juan Bay

Abstract

This thesis seeks to establish the marketplace as a temporal and spatial event that affects a city in a meaningful way. The marketplace was the site of greatest congestion, activity and drama in many cities, often combining functions as varied as the produce it sold. It was a setting for punishment, proclamations, and entertainment as well as commerce. Relocated to city outskirts and replaced by specialized warehouses, marketplaces have disappeared from many urban centers. A marketplace relevant to present-day cities, would be able to remain a central feature in the city, satisfy the shoppers' needs, and fulfill its traditional role as a setting of multiple public functions. The location of this marketplace is San Juan of Puerto Rico, a metropolitan area with a rich tradition of lively marketplaces in its urban cores. San Juan is a city dominated by a majestic bay and the city has grown around its shores and over the last five centuries, slowly at first and with great speed in the last 60 years. New and old neighborhoods share this great backyard despite some barriers like highways and mangrove forests. The floating marketplace of San Juan Bay will dock on three neighborhoods along the bay and its canals. It is an adaptable building, flexible enough to engage significantly with any of its proposed neighborhood destinations. Included in the design are the moorings at the three sites, each one a unique, particular counterpart to the "universal" market hall that visits them. The appearance and disappearance of the market will constitute a community event that can become pa rt of the weekly schedule of the neighbors. Its presence or absence will always bind the three sites together, emphasizing the shared geography, economy and culture of the city's inhabitants. The precedents inspiring this proposal are not markets but rather theaters designed for festivals: the Groningen Pavillion by Fumihiko Maki (1999) and the Teatro del Mondo, designed for the 1979 Venice Biennale by Aldo Rossi. in both cases, the arrivals and departures of these buildings were events that shed an exciting new perspective on their respective cities. As they moved to and from their destinations, the travels of these floating buildings were an affirmation of the possible balance between a city and its surroundings. The traditional edges of urban and rural, man-made and natural, were re-visited with a sense of possibility. While a marketplace is not a theater, a day at the market is an event, like a concert or a play, an "everyday" event that despite its frequency (or perhaps because of it) generates excitement in a community.