February 20, 2021
Concrete and concrete rot in the Central Market Hall
Nowadays, concrete is widely used as a reliable building material in the buildings around us. This was not always the case. For example, reinforced concrete has only existed since the early 20th century. In the first applications, there were teething problems.
Recently, the official starting signal sounded for the restoration of the Centrale Markthal in Amsterdam. The building contains a lot of concrete rot, or damage to the concrete caused by rusting of the reinforcement in the concrete. After all, during the construction of the Central Market Hall, concrete was a fairly new material: people were not yet very skilled at it and the steel reinforcement is less than 1 centimetre from the surface in some parts.