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Not just in Paris . . .
Paris may have been the first to understand the benefits of the shopping passage or arcade, but this architectural style can be found in many other cities around the world. As you can see below, the most impressive are the grand arcades, although the small covered passages can be found also. These are just a small selection of the more noteworthy. I'm always pleased to hear about others: please let me know, along with some information on its significance, architectural, historical or social significance - a photograph (interior and exterior if possible) would also be welcome.

BELGIUM
Brussels: Galeries St Hubert
230m long, 8m wide
Completed June 1847
Designed by Jean Pierre Cluysenaar.

Giant Tuscan columns form the open entrances with the wide, high gallery virtually challenging the passer-by to resist entering. The Galerie de la Reine leads from the Marché Aux Herbes to the central crossing, where it becomes the Galerie du Roi until it reaches the other end, at Rue de l'Ecuyer.

The central avenue is crossed in the middle by the double colonnade of the Rue des Bouchers; the Galerie des Princes is a side gallery which joins the Montagne Aux Herbes Potagers. Elegant shops and cafes, as well as a cinema and restaurants.

Just a few metres from the Grand Place, it is often claimed to be the world's first arcade, but mostly by Belgian guide books.


Leeds
County Arcade, Victoria Quarter. Designed by Frank Matcham (London Palladium, Blackpool Tower Ballroom et al). Leeds had a number of these elegant arcades reflecting the properity of the late 19th Century: Thorntons Arcade was built in 1878, followed by Queens Arcade in 1889 and Grand Arcade and Victoria Arcade in 1898.


Norwich
Victoria Arcade, an Art Nouveau shopping arcade built in the 19th century on a medieval site with many of the original medieval buildings still surviving behind the terracotta facades.


London
Piccadilly Arcade
Burlington Arcade


Hungary
Budapest: Paris Arcade (Parisi Udvar)
Opened 1893
Designed by Heinrich Schmal.

A triumphal entrance arch with a five storey interior covered by a barrel vault and glass dome over 50 metres high, this building is not going to be ignored.

The galleria is at the other nd of a scale that starts with the small parisian passages - monumental in size, designed to impress and constructed as a coherent whole building, rather than an accumulation of buildings, passages and walls.


ITALY
Milan: Galleria Vittorio Emmanuele II
Dome 51 metres high
Opened 1865
Designed by Guiseppe Mengoni.

A triumphal entrance arch with a five storey interior covered by a barrel vault and glass dome over 50 metres high, this building is not going to be ignored.

The galleria is at the other nd of a scale that starts with the small parisian passages - monumental in size, designed to impress and constructed as a coherent whole building, rather than an accumulation of buildings, passages and walls.


Nantes
Passage Pommeraye: built in 1843, designed by the architects Buron and Durand-Gasselin. Glazed over, it consists of three levels of shopping galleries dressed up to nines with stucco arcades, medallions, busts, statues and iron filigree.


RUSSIA
Moscow: GUM
Opened 1893
Designed by Alexander Nikanorovitch Pomerantsez.

Covereing almost all of the Eastern side of RedSquare, GUM became the state owned store in 1917.

Designed in the Italian Renaissance style that was popular in St Petersburg at the time.


USA
Cleveland, Okio: Colonial Arcade
Opened 1893
Designed by Alexander Nikanorovitch Pomerantsez.

A triumphal entrance arch with a five storey interior covered by a barrel vault and glass dome over 50 metres high, this building is not going to be ignored.

The galleria is at the other nd of a scale that starts with the small parisian passages - monumental in size, designed to impress and constructed as a coherent whole building, rather than an accumulation of buildings, passages and walls.



Passage de l'Ancre - Passage Ben Aïad - Cité Berryer - Passage Bourg l'Abbé - Passage Brady - Passage du Caire - Passage Choiseul / Ste Anne - Galerie Colbert - Passage du Gd Cerf - Passage du Havre - Passage Jouffroy - Passage Lhomme - Galerie de la Madeleine - Passage Molière - Passage des Panoramas - Passage Ponceau - Passage des Princes - Passage du Prado - Passage Puteaux - Commerce St André / Rohan - Passage Vendôme - Passage Verdeau - Galerie Véro Dodat - Galerie Vivienne
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