The Grossmarkthalle is Frankfurt's largest building
The Großmarkthalle (wholesale market hall) in Frankfurt am Main, which in the vernacular is affectionately called “Gemieskerch” (vegetable church), was built in a joint venture from 1926 to 1928 and inaugurated on October 25, 1928. With approx. 13,000 m² building area, the total complex in Frankfurt Ostend (East End) was at that time the largest building in Frankfurt.
The 200 m long and 50 m wide hall has a barrel (tunnel) vault roof with spans of 14.10 m per vault and a thickness of only 7 cm. Wayss & Freytag, as a pioneer of reinforced concrete construction, had already successfully carried out such thin shells in Germany previously.
On June 4, 2004 the market hall, which was designed by the architect Martin Elsässer (1884 – 1957), who was head of the building construction department of the Frankfurt am Main city council from 1925 to 1932, was closed and the central market was moved to Kalbach-Riedberg. The building, a protected monument since 1984, has been owned by the European Central Bank since January 1, 2005 which will use the former market hall as a conference, media and visitors´ centre.