RUDY/GODINEZ

Hendrik Petrus Berlage,  Amsterdam Commodities Exchange, (1896-1903)

“…The Exchange building had three great halls housing the Commodity, Grain and Stock Markets, each of them surrounded by smaller offices and service areas. Above the main entrance is the conference room of the Chamber of Commerce. The most striking of the halls is the Commodities Market, 67 feet wide, with a gable roof of glass and iron supported by conspicuous, brightly colored parabolic iron beams. The long walls are turned into openwork screens by the broad arcades of the ground floor and the two galleries above. The stone capitals are remarkable: their faces lie flush with the brick walls above them, both units merging in their common structural function.

 The principle quality of the commodities exchange is it’s serenity, Berlage said that he aimed to achieve an effect of “repose”, by which he meant both serenity and rest: “In the smaller works of the ancients, there is a charming sense of repose. In contrast, our present day architecture gives us a restless impression.”

 The Italian architect Aldo Rossi stressed that the commodities exchange “does not seem to have the appearance of a cathedral or a capital, of the temple of cash, which it’s name calls to mind.” And strangely, in it’s mysterious richness, it “seemed more like a market, a store, a gymnasium. It is devoid of the glorification of bourgeois wealth.”