The winners of the ‘Mercado Municipal de Providencia’ competition have been announced. The call for proposals invited participants to develop architectural designs to restore the quality and identity of the original market building—located in Santiago, Chile—while reclaiming its public character. The original building, designated a “Historic Conservation Property” by the Providencia Communal Regulatory Plan, was designed by architects Carlos Cruz and Escipión Munizaga. Opened in 1947, it quickly became a vital supply center for the Providencia municipality.
The market's renovation had to consider the “urban” quality of the property, addressing the basic needs of local neighborhood residents. Furthermore, the project needed to expand its functions, hosting complementary activities to benefit the city, enhance the building's metropolitan presence, and revitalize the area. Below, see the details of the winning proposal:
First Prize
Project description from the architects:
In urban memory, heritage and architecture emerge as tangible manifestations of a place's history. When approaching the restoration of an icon as prominent as the Providencia Market, we do so with the goal of returning the elegance and pride with which it was designed, restoring its original facade and aligning the main entrance with its central axis. We aim to recover the historic and heritage character of the old Municipal Market, equipping it with a daily program that allows for continuous, permanent public use. To achieve this, targeted interventions were designed to accommodate new programmatic uses while simultaneously highlighting the value of the original structure.
Currently, the heritage building's use is disconnected from the food market, functioning instead as the “backyard” of the property. Additionally, the parking lot situated between the two volumes creates an even greater divide, as vehicular traffic disrupts pedestrian flow between them. Our proposed intervention not only rescues and highlights the value of Munizaga and Cruz's original design, but also revives its community-oriented program. By opening up a closed and fragmented area, the project unifies the entire space into a single large nave that spans the entire site, stretching from the Providencia portico to the food market. This creates an integrated project that consolidates the edges, opens up to the neighborhood, and activates the building's interior and the entire block by introducing a new indoor plaza open to the sidewalk.
Heritage Restoration
The proposed intervention for the Providencia Market aims to preserve and highlight the fundamental characteristics of each phase of its construction and expansion. The primary focus is to restore the features of the original building, especially its architectural elements, spaces, and facade. Secondarily, the project addresses specific spaces and elements from subsequent expansions that serve as distinctive and complementary features, while removing additions that disrupt the building and its relationship with the city.
From the original building by architects Munizaga and Cruz, the design preserves and highlights the large central interior courtyard, the sequence of rectangular columns, the glazed central vault, and the entrance portico. From the subsequent expansions by architects Boza, García, Strabucchi, and Lihn (for the Sernatur offices, the market relocation, and the subsequent library), the proposal retains the massing of the upper floors. It also preserves an added volume within the central courtyard/void; although this addition disrupts the original void, the proposal embraces its quality as an external body, or “bug.”
In addition, the relationship with the Divine Providence Church will be restored by removing the extension of the current municipal library, thereby reopening the view toward Antonio Bellet Street. We also propose opening the rear nave of the building, maintaining the column grid to create transparency and spatial continuity, thus establishing a new central courtyard twice the size of the existing one. The intervention aims to unify the various programs sheltered under the vaulted structures derived from the original project. A new, large canopy is proposed to shelter the existing central nave and extend across the entire property. This creates a singular space illuminated by a series of continuous, double-chambered vaults. This structure not only forms the interior ceiling but also expresses its geometry on the roof, serving as a “fifth facade” in relation to the surrounding buildings.
Above this central space, a more fluid unifying element is introduced—an external volume or “bug”—which begins in the main courtyard as a spiral staircase and transforms into a pathway that accommodates the second-floor program. This element bridges the two sections and articulates the programs: the fresh food market and the culinary market. It also connects the brewery and second-floor restaurants, extending down to the basement level -1 where the mini-market and service areas are located.
Additionally, a new three-story building will be constructed along the northern party wall, respecting the height of the existing volume and completing this large central space to expand the original market. The colonnades of the building's facade will extend toward the side streets, allowing for a complete opening from the interior to the sidewalk and creating a pedestrian passageway into the central naves. We also planned an extension of the original building's pavement and front plinth toward its edges, ensuring continuity between the interior and the sidewalk to foster an engaging indoor-outdoor relationship. This new configuration of the building's edges promotes the revitalization of the surroundings, integrating the project into its urban context by encouraging new activities along its entire perimeter, with these edge shops designed to be highly permeable.
For the main facade facing Providencia Avenue, the proposal aims to restore its original state from the Munizaga and Cruz design, as subsequent expansions and program changes altered its original condition, causing important features to be lost. The plan includes restoring the original brick color as well as the concrete of the pillars, beams, and slabs; restoring the typographic signage over the entrance portico and the geometry of the original clock; reclaiming the original ratio of solids and voids on the main facade under the portico; restoring the original light fixtures and replicating the geometry of the octagonal pergolas; and replicating the characteristic technique used by Munizaga to construct translucent vaults in various buildings using glass paving blocks.
Service Offerings
The restoration proposal includes a fresh food market (Mercado de Abastos) comprising small- and large-scale stalls with varying operating hours, offering groceries, fruits and vegetables, seafood, meat, deli products, nuts, and organic foods, among others. Local products will be carefully curated. Additionally, a culinary market (Mercado Gastronómico)—an innovative concept for the area—will draw on international experiences of markets that celebrate and capitalize on local identity. This space will bring together diverse food stalls and central bars arranged around a central seating area with a dedicated busing service. Concurrently, the ground floor will bring back characteristic neighborhood shops such as florists, bakeries, ice cream parlors, and pastry shops.
The program is complemented by destination restaurants on the second floor, which connect to the seating and bar areas located in the central articulating element linking the fresh food and culinary markets (the aforementioned “bug or external body”). A larger, three-level restaurant is also proposed, featuring an independent entrance from Antonio Bellet Street. This restaurant maintains a continuous relationship with the Divine Providence Church from its street and second-floor levels, culminating in a rooftop terrace on the top floor with unobstructed views of the church and the Providencia housing complex.
In addition to food-focused programs, the project incorporates a “co-cook”—a collaborative workspace where culinary entrepreneurs can rent certified kitchens by the hour—and a specialty store selling kitchenware and artisanal domestic products.
The first basement level houses a multi-purpose room to support the operator's cultural agenda, an emporium or mini-market for products not found in the fresh food market, bicycle parking, and market service areas (including loading docks, dishwashing areas, storage, offices, and waste management). The lower basement levels provide vehicle parking exclusively for the demand generated by the project. Access is located on Antonio Bellet Street to take advantage of better connectivity from Andrés Bello and avoid conflicts with the Santa Beatriz bike lane. By incorporating this new underground parking, the project proposes removing street-level metered parking, thereby freeing up all sidewalks for pedestrian use and outdoor dining for the culinary market.
This article was written by Belén Maiztegui. The translation is powered by AI.
