Francesc Rifé Studio Turns a Former Valencia Aircraft Hangar into a Dark-Toned Gastronomic Market

Merkato occupies a former aircraft hangar in Valencia's Eixample district, a 740 m² volume that Francesc Rifé Studio converted in 2018 into a gastronomic market with a restaurant, bakery and deli selling Spanish products. The Barcelona-based studio says it used simplicity as its governing principle and avoided themes or traditions. For a food hall in a city with a strong market culture, that is a deliberate refusal. There are no tiled nostalgia, no faux stalls and no folksy signage.

What we find interesting is how far the studio pushes a single tonal decision. Almost every surface and furnishing is black or coal-toned: blackened pinewood, black timber tables, charcoal terracotta, black metal mesh. In a hangar, the usual move is to celebrate height and brightness. Rifé does the opposite. He darkens everything below the trusses so the roof structure and a single ridge skylight do the work, and the dining room reads as an outdoor courtyard at dusk rather than as a converted shed.

A Dark Door on an Eixample Street

The street front gives little away. Black panel doors, charred timber boards and a modest hanging sign make the entrance read more like a workshop than a restaurant. The metal lettering, lit by a single downlight against a textured dark wall, shows how restrained the graphic language is. One fixture, one shadow, one name.

Behind the large entry door, a long corridor lined with food goods for sale leads to the dining space. Putting retail in the approach is a smart programmatic choice. You walk through the deli before you sit down, so the products set the tone before the architecture does. The blackened pine panels facing the door start a material story that carries all the way through.

Mesh Boxes Instead of Walls

The most legible architectural move is a set of three box-like volumes made from black metal mesh sheets, standing on the side of the dining room opposite the kitchen. The bakery sits behind them. According to the studio, the volumes were designed to be installed without additional works. In a protected or structurally sensitive industrial shell, that matters. The boxes sit inside the hangar like furniture, not like construction.

Mesh is the right material here because it lets the volumes be solid and transparent at once. From one angle they read as dark monoliths; from another, you see through to a mirror-tiled counter, a concrete trough sink or a potted olive tree. The steel frames and glazing give the mesh enough rigidity to hold an edge, so the boxes never look flimsy against the scale of the roof.

The Bar and the Wine Cube

The bar shows the same discipline at a smaller scale. A black counter, two stools and a mesh-clad cube for wine sit beneath exposed trusses and black ductwork. Rifé leaves the services visible but paints them into the dark palette, so the mechanical layer becomes part of the composition rather than something to hide behind a dropped ceiling.

The long communal table and wine shelves next to the mesh cube suggest how the plan shifts between modes: grab a glass at the bar, sit at a shared table, or move into the dining room proper. Linear pendants keep the light low and directional, which suits a space meant to feel intimate despite its industrial volume.

A Kitchen Seen Through Missing Tiles

At the rear of the dining room, a long partition of charcoal terracotta tiles hides the kitchen. Some tiles are omitted, so diners catch glimpses of chefs at work. It is a simple and effective idea. The open kitchen has become a cliché, and this version edits it. You see enough to know the food is cooked by people, not so much that the kitchen dominates the room.

The same logic of framed views appears at the service hatch cut into a dark wall in front of the charcoal grill, and at the tiled counter beneath a chalkboard menu. Each opening is sized to frame a specific activity. The perforations act as a kind of stagecraft: the cooks become the moving figures in an otherwise static, dark set.

A Courtyard Under a Hangar Roof

The studio wanted the dining room to evoke an outdoor courtyard, and the box planters with leafy trees placed among the tables carry most of that intent. Olive trees in a black interior could easily look like decoration. Here they work because they are the only living, green element in an otherwise monochrome room, and the eye goes straight to them.

The skylight at the roof peak completes the courtyard reading. Daylight falls from above, as it would into a patio, while the darkened walls and floor absorb rather than bounce it. Seen through the mesh, the skylight glows pale against the roof trusses, and the hangar's height becomes a source of light rather than empty volume to fill.

Why This Project Matters

Merkato shows how far one material decision can carry an adaptive reuse project. Instead of competing with the hangar's scale through partitions, mezzanines or bright finishes, Francesc Rifé Studio darkens the ground plane and lets the roof and skylight define the room. The result is a large industrial space that feels contained, even private, without being subdivided into small rooms.

It also offers a useful lesson in light intervention. The mesh volumes go in without additional works, the planters move, and the kitchen partition edits views rather than building walls. For designers working inside existing industrial shells, Merkato shows that restraint, a narrow palette and a few precise openings can create atmosphere more reliably than theme or ornament.

Merkato by Francesc Rifé Studio, Valencia, Spain. Area: 740 m². Completed: 2018. Photography by David Zarzoso.

About the Studio

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