Invisible Spaces: Bucharest Market Hall Basement—A Tool for Modernizing the Food Chain (1872–1914)

Abstract Focusing on the case of Bucharest, the article aims to analyze a neglected element of infrastructure: the basement of the Central Market Hall. Its main function, of food preservation, suffers major reconsiderations around 1900, under the double impact of microbiology and cooling preservation techniques. How the City Hall authorities responded to the challenges brought by the emergence of new medical, biological, and hygiene knowledge? What role did they have in introducing disruptive techniques, such as refrigerators, that modify the behavior of the various agents of the food market? The analysis of the Market Hall’s basement dynamic also reveals the tensions between the hygienic principles and the limits imposed by very specific conditions. Caught between divergent pressures, the Municipality was forced to be flexible and to compromise, trying to find solutions that were regarded as definite progress even if they did not fully comply with the hygienic ideals.