The Sala Murat (Murat Hall) is named after Gioacchino Murat, King of Naples, who in 1813 laid the first stone of the Murattian borough of the city. It recalls the structure of the previous Meat Market (1818), the first public building in the city, which was to be demolished in the post-World War II period after becoming derelict. The prominent façade of the recently rebuilt edifice looks out onto Piazza Ferrarese while its lesser façades overlook Corso Vittorio Emanuele II and Via Vallisa. Two of these façades are in dazzling white Trani stone and show an alternation of wide arch apertures and double pilasters on high plinths, which bear the epistyles that form the top of the building. Today, Sala Murat’s 400 square metres are used for exhibitions and specialised retail for local designers and craftspeople (www.pugliadesignstore.it). The ex-Fish Market building is a compact construction on two floors, with an orderly horizontal and vertical composition. Its façade on Piazza del Ferrarese has five central bays opening onto the market itself, while the second and eighth bays permit access to the upper floors. The architecture of the ground floor is typical of early 19th century buildings, with double ashlar pilasters set on high stone plinths. These frame the arched apertures and end in a jutting cornice. The first floor is a loft used as a parapet and is characterised by columns in binate Ionic order alternating with wide rectangular windows which reveal pinnacled epistyles and shell-shaped embellishments. The façade ends with a summit cornice on a bracket overlooking the parapet of the terrace. The façade on Corso Vittorio Emanuele and on Via Vallisa are divided into three and four bays, respectively. The first is on the windowed ground floor, while the second provides access to the workshops, currently undergoing restoration work. The east frontage, while maintaining the features of the other façades, has a simplified ornamental design, which reveals its later construction period. It is closed at the ends by architraved apertures above which there are square mezzanine windows. These twin buildings, together with the Margherita theatre, will soon become venues for the Bari Centre of Contemporary Art.