The Sunday market of Tlacolula is the most important in the Tlacolula valley. People come in from all the neighbouring villages to sell their products and also to buy the things they need for themselves. There are still many Indians in the Tlacolula valley who speak Zapotec. On Sundays the colourful market stalls are set up on either side of the main street and near the old market-hall it gets really crowded with swarms of people.

The market plays a prominent role in Indian community life. It is considered a festive day. The word ‘feria’ means both fair and market. Music is played and everybody meets everybody else. The market traders have their meals together sitting at long wooden tables. After all, many villagers have come from quite far away.

The church of the convent in Tlacolula dates back to the sixteenth century. It has a side chapel, which is regarded as one of the most beautiful of the Colonial period. Next to the church, a market-hall for the everyday selling of bread and vegetables was built about a hundred years ago. On a neighbouring empty field the Indian vendors set up their stalls on Sundays.

Here in the shade of four enormous trees (Indian laurels), planted with great care a century ago, the Zapotec Indians used to gather. Nowadays salesmen from other parts of the country come in with their vans full of cheap plastic articles and electrical goods. They have the nerve to occupy the best places, pushing aside the more modest Indian traders with their homemade products and baskets of fruit and vegetables.

The market has attracted many tourists of late because it has the reputation of being an authentic Indian market. Twenty years after the Otavalo market T thought of a new design for an Indian market. She chose the Tlacolula market this time. It turned out she had to make two designs, one for the Sunday market with traditional Indian products and one for the daily market, where all sorts of articles were sold.

The design T had in mind for the larger field with the four giant trees comprised the planting of another four of these large trees. Round them patios are laid out in a geometrical pattern, which in their turn are enclosed by roofed walkways. The Indian traders can sit on sections of tree trunks set in concrete. For the buyers there were seats all round the trees. The walkways would have vaulted brick ceilings built by hand, an old technique the Spaniards learned from the Moors.

Comparing the two market designs, the Otavalo design of 1970 and the one for Tlacolula of 1990, we can see that the two are both principally open-air markets, both only partially covered. The stalls in Otavalo are seemingly set up at random. On the face of it there seems to be no clear pattern behind the way in which the ninety parasols are arranged.

Looking down upon the scale model, however, the shape of a cloverleaf or butterfly can be recognized. From the four corners, the square can be entered freely and then the ‘embracing’ stalls lead the way further on. T tried to break up the old hierarchic order in which the richer stallholders occupied the places in the front rows, whereas the poorer traders had to do business in the back rows.

Her design was meant to suggest a natural setting, as if the products were being sold somewhere in the woods. Sellers become buyers after some time and in the afternoon the Indian families return to their homes.

The design for the Tlacolula market showed a far more rigidly geometric pattern, which was the logical consequence of the rectangular shape of the marketplace and the position of the four giant trees. By planting another four trees a covered central area was created, framed in by the vaulted walkways.

There is another difference from Otavalo: the Indian sellers in Tlacolula have a kind of island of tree trunks at their disposal as seats. Four freestanding columns demarcate the space of their stalls. This gives the Tlacolula market a character totally different from that of Otavalo, where each seller is in direct contact with ‘his’ parasol column and uses the parasol base to sit on.

The differences in the designs somehow reflect the contrasting architectural histories of the two places. Otavalo lies at the end of the old Inca route. The Incas had come to Otavalo only shortly before the arrival of the Spaniards, so a building culture had not yet been established. The Incas brought with them their Quechua language. They built a ‘púcara’ (Inca fortress), consisting of several terraces on a hill overlooking the lake of San Pablo and the Inca highway to the north.

The Otavaleños, who were good weavers even then, were ordered by the Inca rulers to hand over their woven products to them. A market, where the Indians exchange their products among themselves, has been a tradition for over a thousand years.

On the other hand the Zapotecs, who live in the Oaxaca Valley, certainly have a great architectural tradition. As early as 500 BC their ancestors had built the first city of Monte Albán, which after so many centuries still commands admiration. Also, the well-organized architecture of the Aztec market in Tlatelolco surprised the Spanish conquerors.

After designing the Indian market for Tlacolula, the design for the town market was still of concern. The town market was the place where daily necessities, such as bread, vegetables, and meat could be purchased. Local mestizos run the stalls or small shops that are open daily, because they live close enough to work there every day. That is how two types of markets have come into being: the daily market and the weekly Sunday market when all the Indians come in.

Now that Tlacolula has grown bigger and bigger, the size and the facilities of the old market-hall are no longer satisfactory. For the sale of meat and fish, cold storage is required. The many permanent stalls and shops occupy the entire hall, so that there is no room for the Indian sellers on Sundays. The solution is to have another separate location for a new central town market. The Tlacolula authorities did not have to think long. The site next to the church, where in the sixties a school was built, in their opinion offered the best solution to the problem. The school had to be removed anyway, as it needed more space for outdoor activities and sports facilities. A suitable location for it had already been found on the edge of town.

T’s design for the town market of Tlacolula consisted of two storeys. There was a double ring of small shops on the ground floor, one facing the street, the other facing the inner court. Both had their advantages. The inner ring is cooler and therefore more suitable for the food shops. For clothes, bags, shoes etc. the outer ring will do perfectly. On the first floor the kitchens were installed and dining tables set out from which people had a view of the large inner court.

The inner court can be used for various purposes. During the week sports activities can be organized there in the evening after closing time of the shops. The toilets are on the ground floor for that reason. At weekends the inner court hall can be let to salesmen who deal in electrical goods, television sets, and radios. Tlacolula is well known for them.

As this large hall will be used quite frequently, it is decided to project a roof over it. T called in expert help from a college friend from Delft, Mick Eekhout. He had become an authority on transparent covering-over constructions. Discussing the subject, they hit upon the idea of spanning the inner court by rafters that will look like the wings of enormous bats. In ancient times bats and owls were associated with the Zapotec nobility.