Covered markets

1.Tirana 2.City of Mexico 3.Athens

3. Damascus 4.Istanbul 5.Aleppo

On marketplaces

This is a first attempt to list some important parameters on marketplaces.
Functional parameters:
- Types of goods and specialization of marketplace (e.g. food, clothes, computer …)
- Retail / wholesale commerce
- Ways of goods’ exchange
- ….
Spatial parameters:
- Spatial characteristics (kiosk, shop, covered market, arcade, shopping center, shopping mall, vending machine, market square, street market, shopping street, flea market, street vendor…)
- Role in urban fabric (land uses, movements, public/private space…)
- Immovable, movable, e-market
- ….
Social parameters:
- Socioeconomic networks
- Labour
- Gender
- …
Economic parameters:
- Connection with production
- Centrally controlled / Free market
- Formality / informality / illegality
- Scale and type of businesses
- …
Time parameter:
- Permanency / temporality
- …
Historical - cultural parameters
(agora, arcade, forum, suq, bazar, carsi, bezesten, mercado...)

P.S. Waiting for contributions....

2 Αγορές και το όριο - 2 markets and the boundary

In 1964 the Green line separated the city in two sectors. The historical market of Nicosia (shown in the aerial photo as a complex of roofs) remained in the North sector. The need for a similar market in the South led to an architectural competition. Stauros Economou, designed in 1965 the new modern building for a second market (shown as a square building lower part of the photo) of a separated city. 

Agora

Agora in ancient Greek cities is an open space that served as a meeting ground for various activities of the citizens. The name, first found in the works of Homer, connotes both the assembly of the people as well as the physical setting; it was applied by the classical Greeks of the 5th century bc to what they regarded as a typical feature of their life: their daily religious, political, judicial, social, and commercial activity. The agora was located either in the middle of the city or near the harbour, which was surrounded by public buildings and by temples.
Britannica

Inventory of Nicosia Markets 1873 (from Louis Salavator)

1. Manufacters
2. Tailors
3. Calico, rugs, hides
4. European shoemakers
5. Shoemakers
6. Turkish shoes
7. Yarns
8. Cabinet makers
9. Carriages
10. Copper articles
11. Silversmiths
12. Ironware
13. Earthenware
14. Haberdashery
15. Taverns
16. Vegetables and meat
17. Fish
18. Halva (sweets)
19. Women
20. Cotton
21. Flour
22. Wheat and barley
23. Mules

on physical borders No2:

Sometimes, physical borders are constructed in a violent way. They are imposed on space, due to political, economic or other reason. They are spatial symbols of power. They split social and economic networks, by controlling flows and movements. Social inequalities become visible and, possibly, grow because of the existence of physical border. Apart from loss of communication, borders mean exclusion and loss of access for some groups to new opportunities, e.g. exclusion from goods, labour, services and land. Inequalities create formal and informal flows that cross borders and develop new networks of exchange (migration, investments, trade, etc).

In this framework borders divide and connect at the same time. Borders exist for some groups of people and do not exist for others. They divide space in “here” and “there”, “inside” and “outside”. This also means social division between “us” and “others”. Fear is created, but also curiosity about “others”. Division of space is further established by daily practices, but also new ways of border-crossing are invented by the desire of communication.

Could the development of intermediate (public?) spaces of meeting, spaces of inclusion and exchange, spaces of participation, make the distinction between “us” and “others” less effective and reduce social divisions of space?

on physical borders:

Sometimes, physical borders are constructed out of the need to stop violent acts. Then they become 'concrete' evidences of social, ethnic and cultural differences which they project to the future. In this way physical borders have more than just material or real effects on city life. Although they do block real time, physical connections (exchanges, trade, meetings, movement, views) transforming public space in an absolute way, in the course of time they become manifestations of a deeper problem: the loss of the ability to communicate. Their presence affects not only the present and the futrue of the city, but it can shape also the past. Understood as representations of the loss of collective memory they end up momuments of the absence of a community history, the absence of a history of everyday-life.

At the same time openings on the borders, may seem to provide the possibility of contact and construct passages-bridges to the other, but seen differently they can be points of control; another way to complete seperation, to stabilize and make the border official.

How can we utilize the instability of the presence condition and the transitional time before the next transformation takes place, to learn and to propose alternative scenarios, alternative conditions of meeting and exchange?