The aim of this website is to map the remaining vintage shopping arcades wherever they are to be found in the UK and the rest of the world. The idea is also to tell some of the stories linked to each arcade, whether it be early shopkeepers who traded there 100 years ago, or accidents and incidents that happened in and around the arcade. There will be tragedy at times, but also romance.
But above all the aim is to create a community of those of us who love the character and history of arcades. I’m hoping people will comment, telling us their own memories of the arcades I have already visited: maybe a favourite shop now long gone, or maybe a personal story of their own. And I’m happy to hear of suggestions of arcades not yet visited, especially if they are outside the UK.
In my research on what already exists for lovers of arcades, I have found only one published book on UK shopping arcades: Margaret McKeith’s book dates from the 1980s, and is largely written from an architect’s perspective. Her book is a useful starting point for seeing where the arcades built from 1817-1939 were still standing in 1980. Many have disappeared in the last 40 years as city centres develop – or die – and more out-of-town shopping malls get built.
The only online resources I have found where people tell the kind of stories I am interested in are on Facebook pages, either about an existing arcade or on the history pages of some town or city. As far as I can see, there is no website like my Arcades Project, which both maps the remaining arcades and tells stories about their past.
German-born writer Walter Benjamin had to evacuate Paris in 1940 when the Nazis occupied. He was in the middle of his own Arcades Project, looking at arcades in Paris, their history, their stories, their people. He never finished his project, but his notes were published as a 1000+ page volume of his thoughts, his philosophy, and his conclusions on arcades’ role in French society.
My ‘Arcades Project,’ unlike Benjamin’s, is not trying to draw any philosophical conclusions on the meaning of life; nor is it looking at the architecture of the arcades as MacKeith did in the UK. It is really a social history project, trying to find stories that bring the arcade alive, as well as seeing what the 21st life of a 19th century (or early 20th century) arcade looks like today. My sources for most of these stories come from the British Newspaper Archives
It is also international, even if the focus will mostly be UK. Paris is famous for its arcades, Adelaide in Australia, too. But there are arcades still open today in countries as far apart as Sweden, New Zealand, Italy and the US. One day, I’d like to go to them all. But, rather like Walter Benjamin, it may be that this Arcades Project will never finish, especially if readers keep telling me of arcades I have not yet visited.
