IT’S an unlikely tourist attraction.
But Huddersfield’s Queensgate Market is getting visits by architecture students and engineers by the coachload.
And they are coming from all over the world.
The market is unique because it is roofed with 21 freestanding asymmetric hyperbolic paraboloid shells – sheltering a modern shopping centre a feature that has led to it being hailed an architectural wonder.
It also boasts the world’s largest ceramic mural, which is on the outside of the building overlooking Queensgate.., and is now recognised as an architectural gem.
The building was listed grade two in 2005 and in 2007 Queensgate Market Hall was awarded the highest honour of the Concrete Society, the Certificate of Excellence for a mature structure.
The latest visitors were 100 students from Nottingham Trent University who visited the market yesterday.
The visit is a direct result of the hard work put in by Chris Marsden.
Mr Marsden is co-ordinator for Huddersfield Gem, which promotes civic pride in the town.
He presented a paper on the engineering expertise and construction of the market’s roof at the International Association for Shell and Spatial Structures (IASS) Symposium in Acapulco, Mexico, in 2008.
His attendance at the conference was sponsored by Huddersfield Civic Society.
Among the delegates from around the world in Acapulco was Dr Marisela Mendoza, senior lecturer at the School of Art, Design and the Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University.
Dr Mendoza marvelled at the building’s design and is now sharing its beauty with her students.
A party of IASS members from around the world is expected to visit the market in October.
Huddersfield Gem’s aims include the study, promotion and ensuring the future of the Queensgate Market Hall building.
Dr Mendoza received a grant in the Royal Institute of British Architects Research Trust Awards 2010.
Her work "Felix Candela’s Legacy: An investigation of Felix Candela’s work and its legacy to the socio- cultural heritage and public identity of the contemporary society in Mexico and the UK" includes references to the Queensgate Market. Its design was based on Candela’s work.
Mr Marsden is a postgraduate researcher, at the University of Huddersfield, studying the development and significance of Queensgate Market.
Queensgate Market timeline:
March 1967: Demolition started to prepare the site for the new market hall
March 1968: Construction work started.
April 1970: Queensgate Market opened for the first day of trading. The Huddersfield Daily Examiner reported: "Architecturally, the new Market Hall is one of the most interesting buildings to have been erected in Huddersfield for many years."
July 2003: Kirklees Metropolitan Council announced seven options to redevelop the Queensgate area. Some of these options involved demolishing Queensgate Market Hall and Huddersfield Library. None came to fruition.
February 2004: The Twentieth Century Society applied for listing of Queensgate Market Hall.
June 2004: Huddersfield Gem was established to promote the market hall.
August 2005: David Lammy MP, Minister of Culture, announced the listing of the market hall at grade II. He said: "Huddersfield's Queensgate Market is the best surviving example of a retail market from the 1960s and 1970s. It is an imaginative structure that combines innovative technology of its time to produce a dramatic space full of natural light with the striking focal point of the roof."
April 2010: Huddersfield’s Queensgate Market was 40 years old. To celebrate, the Mayor of Kirklees opened an exhibition on the construction and opening of the market and hosted a tea party. The exhibition is still on display in the market.
