Documentation of Félix Candela's Jamaica Market hypar shells in Mexico City

Jamaica Market located in the south-west corner of Venustiano Carranza Borough is one of the most important trade and distribution centres in Mexico City with 1,150 stalls of a wide variety of merchandise, in particular flowers and vegetables. The existing market was built to replace the Old Jamaica Market. The Old Jamaica market, designed and built by the prominent shell builder, Félix Candela, was demolished after the 1985 earthquake which shook Mexico City. This site holds a long history of trade and agriculture dating back to the pre-Hispanic times and it was very much characterised for its open trade activities. In 1956, under a government's initiative, a roofed market was proposed to house the informal trading of this area. Félix Candela in collaboration with the City Department Architect, Pedro Ramirez Vazquez, were commissioned to design and built a new permanent and covered market in this area. Jamaica Market was comprised of two parallel rows of twelve umbrellas each sheltering the docks where the delivery of wholesale goods was handled and it was one of the first markets to include parking facilities. Candela had gained experience and reputation in the design and construction of inverted hypar concrete shell structures particularly for warehouses and markets. However, the Jamaica Market marked an important point on Candela's repertoire of inverted umbrella concrete shell structures as it was the first time that the inverted hypar umbrella was divided into eight as supposed to the conventional four sections in order to avoid bending at the edges of the concrete shells.

Although Candela's inverted hypar concrete shell structures for markets have been explored by architects and engineers, hitherto little has been documented or explored in depth in regard to Jamaica Market's design, construction, and structural damage -after the 1985 earthquake- as well as its imminent demolition. The present paper documents the history of the market, architectural qualities and urban attributes and provides account of the events that culminated in the market's demolition after the 1985 earthquakes.