http://journals.cambridge.org Downloaded: 17 Mar 2009 IP address: 193.60.94.67 Informal markets in Moscow, Istanbul and Brc ˘ko In the past two decades numerous large-scale informal markets have emerged on the fringes of European cities in the wake of global geopolitical transformations. Relying on individualised long- distance connections and adapting to diverse local situations, they produce a proliferating array of unregulated urban architectures while providing habitats for millions of undocumented existences. One such case is the infamous Arizona Market not far from the north Bosnian town of Br˘ cko, a place that has been transformed from a border guard post into a major hub for people trafficking and prostitution and now into a multi-ethnic centre of ubiquitous consumption. Another one, Izmailovo Market in the north-east of Moscow, the largest informal trading centre in the region with links to all parts of the Russian Federation and beyond, has grown into a Babylonian site of 15 specialised trading areas that rivals the Moscow Kremlin both in terms of size and visitor attractiveness. And when the 22nd World Congress of Architecture was held in Istanbul under the motto ‘Grand Bazaar of Architectures’, a bazaar of a very different kind traded outside the tourist centres: a vast network of provisional, informal street markets that establish themselves right alongside the building sites of official urban regeneration, beneath terraces of motorways and next to newly constructed tram lines. Before exploring the dynamics of these spaces in more detail, let us address briefly the socio-economic conditions underlying the rise of informal markets. The term ‘informal market’ refers to widely scattered trading phenomena whose dynamics and forms of spatial materialisation differ greatly in character, even though they are generally tied to political and economic transformations. At the economic level, the term applies to incomes whose generation is ‘unregulated by the institutions of society, in a legal and social environment in which similar activities are regulated’. 1 Informal markets refer to uncontrolled activities by travelling enterprises operating over large areas, such as the East European ‘suitcase traders’ and the mobile and border-crossing networks of the kiosk trade, as well as the rampant agglomerations of temporary grey and black markets that are provisionally occupying vacated plots everywhere. The globally distributed nodes of the informal economy are usually the product of political upheaval, global economic deregulation, migratory movements and new labour situations. These days they emerge in periods of transition, between omnipotent government control and globally oriented neoliberal societies, in which the state’s role is confined to optimising ‘informal’ arrangements. Hand in hand with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, new nodes of exchange have sprung up in previously peripheral regions of Europe. These spots have turned into transient agglomerations of thriving informal trade, bringing different cultures together along the new axes of commercial gravitation. This development accounts for an abundance of uncontrolled interactions, indeterminate spaces and eclectic imageries. From the improvised shanties of post-war economies, such as street traders and kiosks, which provide basic supplies in derelict urban areas, to the widely ramified infrastructures of Eastern Europe’s shuttle trade, informal markets have become prime sites for economies of survival to impinge upon contemporary forms of spatial organisation. Driven by the new imperative of social mobility and the undertow of expanding transnational spaces, these sites have evolved into novel and extreme material configurations. Among the best known European markets of this kind are Arizona Market in the north-east of Bosnia- Herzegovina, Izmailovo Market in Moscow, Seventh- Kilometer Market in Odessa, Jarmark Europa in Warsaw’s Dziesieciolecia stadium and the so-called ‘suitcase trade’ between the Balkans and the Caucasus with its Istanbul base Laleli. These sites contribute to a proliferation of transitory spaces in which different cultures engage in a variety of encounters alongside the homogenising forces of globalisation, and in doing so have become a vital source for architects, artists and theorists to study the potential of accelerated spatial appropriation and self-organisation. What is common to all these urbanism arq . vol 12 . no 3/4 . 2008 347 urbanism As emergent sites of transient and paradoxical spatial production, Izmailovo Market Moscow, Topkapı Market Istanbul and Arizona Market Brc ˘ko (BaH) are explored. Spaces of encounter: informal markets in Europe Peter Mörtenböck and Helge Mooshammer