The Mark­thalle 9 in Kreuzberg has been empty for a couple of years now. You could find a super­mar­ket and a drug store in it; noth­ing of the mar­ket spirit was left to find in the build­ing. Last year, Mar­cus even shot a video of the almost empty space.

But in 2009 a few people got together and decided they would buy back the build­ing, restore the former mar­ket space and cre­ate a new weekly mar­ket. Bey­ond that, the mar­ket hall is to be com­pletely freed from the dis­count super­mar­kets in the upcom­ing months, and a new loc­a­tion for com­munity issues, pro­jects and events is to be build from the found­a­tion of the mar­ket. Check out more details on the offi­cial pro­ject website.

This move­ment, the idea and the whole pro­ject is over­whelm­ingly inspir­ing and I am very happy that the city coun­cil has allowed this cre­at­ive devel­op­ment. I went to check out how far they’ve come last week­end and I can only recom­mend every­one snack around the beau­ti­ful stands and arrange­ments– you’ll love it.