In respecting the city as a living organic entity, Alvar Aalto’s observed that, “the status of public buildings in society should be just as important as the role of the vital organs in the human body.” In this context, judging by the evidence, the city has become similar to an ailing patient in which the underlying nature of the disease has become a form of taboo buried under a glossy cosmetic landscape.
Without the wherewithal to look clearly at the illness and its consequences we perpetuate remedies which hide the symptoms and obfuscate the nature of the disease.

• Introduction
• the medieval market square
• structures
• market hall as public space
• the city in transition
• the global city
• sites of contestation
• the ailing city
• reflection
• market halls in transition