Harness Community History & Traditions
In the places where we lived, my husband and I made it a point to go to the food festivals and traditional food markets around the neighborhood. In Basel, we regularly attended the Herbstmesse, an annual Fall Festival which offered carnival rides and games, arts & crafts stalls, and traditional Swiss food stalls like fondue, raclette, and kasse baengli (melted cheese inside a bread roll). As we savored these cheese delicacies, we learned a lot about Swiss tradition and connected it with the continued importance of farming, animal raising, and cheese production in this country.
Basel Herbstmesse (Autumn Festival)
Variety of cheese blocks for sale
Stall offering cheese raclette (melted cheese poured over potatoes)
Makeshift restaurant stall offering cheese fondue (melted gruyere and enmenthal cheese with white wine, garlic, and kirsch)
In Cambodia, we regularly visited the Phnom Penh Central Market and sampled food fare from street vendors. I identified similarities between the cuisine of Cambodia and my native country, the Philippines. I also appreciated being able to sample local fruits which were cut up and ready to eat. Here in the US, we got to enjoy culture and food festivals celebrating Scottish Highland heritage, Thai culture, and international cuisine (through a food fair hosted by the Virginia Tech students).
TRADITIONAL FOOD MARKETS & FOOD FESTIVALS, AROUND THE WORLD
A well organized and economically viable food hall can easily target a good number of visitors and an increased frequency for their visits. In a community environment, this will immediately help achieve familiarity and social interaction among the residents.
However, to achieve social integration, develop a shared culture, and build social capital, a food hall must have a “sense of place” or “sense of community” [6, 8, 9, 11-13]. In planning for, building a new, or renovating a historic food hall, community planners must work on ensuring that the food hall has a meaning to the people in the community. Guide questions recommended by the Project for Public Spaces include whether the community attributes meaning to a public space and whether the residents have a sense of pride and ownership for the said space [1, 9, 18].
Traditional Public Markets and Market Halls
One principle to help achieve a sense of place for a food hall is for planners to harness the community’s history and tradition [1, 6, 8, 13, 15].
Older communities have traditional public markets or market halls which need local government support in terms of rehabilitation, funding, and improvement in management. This is the priority because existing markets have the ideal location, the connection to traditions, a wide diversity of vendors, and hopefully a good customer base to rely on [1, 4, 8]. Given enough support and amount of renovation, these markets can continue their contribution to the of economic and social development of the community [11, 12].
If there are changes in the community’s consumer demands and lifestyle, these traditional public markets or market halls can be re-purposed to include food halls, artisanal food items, arts & crafts stores, as well as fresh produce [1-3]. This is a second option and must be done very carefully, so as not to remove the authenticity of the market and the link to the community’s history and tradition.
“Reading Terminal Market History
Not long after, open air markets fell out of favor with the general public. They were considered health hazards and nuisances. They also created obstacles for the ever-increasing streetcar traffic. Bowing to complaints of nearby residents, city fathers decreed that the street markets would have to go, and in 1859 summarily dismantled them. It was then that two main markets sprang up at 12th and Market Streets. They were known as the Farmers’ Market and the Franklin Market. It would be these two markets that would become the forerunners of what is now Reading Terminal Market.[16]”
— Reading Terminal Market website [16]
Historical Buildings Which Can Be Repurposed into Food Halls
In case there are no existing public markets or market halls, community planners can look out for other historic buildings in the neighborhood which can be saved and re-purposed as a food hall venue [7]. In preserving these old buildings, care must also be taken to document their history and preserve their architectural structure, to enable the community to continue to connect with the history of said place [7, 10].
“Granville Island History, The Public Market
The six buildings that make up the Public Market once housed companies that manufactured and sold equipment for the logging, mining and shipping industries. [5]”
— Granville Island Public Market website [5]
GRANVILLE ISLAND PUBLIC MARKET
VARIOUS HISTORICAL BUILDINGS IN THE ISLAND
Open Air Food Festivals and Community Markets
Food festivals and community markets, especially the organic ones which sprout without any assistance from local governments, are reflective of the needs, culture, and spirit of the community [14, 15, 17]. They offer food items which are both prepared by and appreciated by local residents. If these food festivals and community markets are successfully attracting a large number of visitors, they may benefit from the construction of a covered structure or a transfer to a renovated building. Care must again be taken to ensure that the original intent of these festivals and markets are preserved.
LOCAL FOOD FESTIVALS, AROUND THE WORLD
“Types of Rural Creative Placemaking
• Connect local food to local art. The local food movement is growing rapidly and many communities are connecting the dots between the creative people working in both fields.”
— How to Do Creative Placemaking [7]
In all these various options, harnessing the community’s traditions and using historic buildings help preserve a story and a connection between the food hall and the community. Food halls with a perceived “sense of place” usually build on, preserve, and continue a community’s market practices.
Sources:
Montserrat Crespi-Vallbona and Darko Dimitrovski, 'Urban Food Markets in the Context of a Tourist Attraction: La Boqueria Market in Barcelona Spain', Tourism Geographies, 20 (2018), 397-417.
'Cultivating Development, Trends, and Opportunities at the Intersection of Food and Real Estate', (Washington, DC, USA, Urban Land Institute, 2016).
'Food Halls of North America', (Cushman & Wakefield, 2018).
Karen Franck, 'Food for the City, Food in the City', Architecture Design May/June 2005 2005.
'Granville Island History, the Public Market', 2019 <https://granvilleisland.com/history/public-market>.
Edwin Heathcote, 'How Cities Can Harness the Power of the Market', in Financial Times (London, United Kingdom The Financial Times Ltd. , 2018).
'How to Do Creative Placemaking', ed. by Jason Ball and Don Schupback (Washington, DC, National Endowment for the Arts, 2016).
Peter Jones, David Hillier, and Daphne Comfort, 'Changing Times and Changing Places for Market Halls and Covered Markets' 2007.
'Making Your Market a Dynamic Community Place', (Project for Public Spaces 2016).
Ann Markusen and Anne Gadwa, 'Creative Placemaking', ed. by National Endowment for the Arts (2010).
Alfonso Morales, 'Marketplaces: Prospects for Social, Economic, and Political Development', Journal of Planning Literature, 26 (2011), 3-17.
———, 'Public Markets as Community Development Tools', Journal of Planning Education and Research, 28 (2008), 426-40.
Susan Parham, 'Designing the Gastronomic Quarter', Architecture Design May/June 2005.
'Public Food Markets: Build Cities, Regions, and Revitalize Communities', (Toronto Public Food Markets Working Group 2017).
'Public Markets as a Vehicle for Social Integration and Upward Mobility', in Phase I Report: An Overview of Existing Programs and Assessment of Opportunities (New York, New York, Project for Public Spaces, Inc. & Partners for Livable Communities, 2003).
'Reading Terminal Market History', 2019 <https://readingterminalmarket.org/about-us/history/>.
David Studdert and Sophie Watson, Markets as Sites for Social Interaction: Spaces of Diversity, Public Spaces Series (Bristol, UK: Published for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation by Policy Press, 2006.).
'What Makes a Successful Place', Project for Public Spaces, 2018 <https://www.pps.org/article/grplacefeat>.