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Milan’s Galeria Vittorio Emanuele is breathtaking in its beauty, and mind-blowing in its magnitude. It surely can lay claim to being the most stunning arcade in the world (though I’m happy to hear counter-arguments if any readers don’t agree). Of course, it had the advantage over its prestigious predecessors in London and Paris by being…
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Krüger Passage in Dortmund was built in 1912 by the latest in this family of printers and booksellers, who ran a local newspaper and had a bookshop which ran the whole length of one side of the arcade when it opened. Sadly, that bookshop closed in 2009 after 97 years of business in the arcade…
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Stockholm’s only vintage shopping arcade was built in the 1890s and supposedly modelled on what was then the magnificent Kaisergalerie in Berlin, although it’s impossible to compare now as Berlin’s arcades didn’t survive the destruction of World War 2. Birger Jarlspassagen was never very long in the first place, measuring only about 40m, with just…
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De Passage in The Hague is a superb arcade with extraordinary high glass ceilings and three arms, all leading out from the central glass dome. The dome and two of those arms were built in 1885; the third arm in 1929. The original foundation stone was laid a little four year old girl called Eliza,…
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The original Passage Lemonnier in Liege was built in the 1830s, making it almost 10 years older than its neighbours in Brussels. But this arcade in Liege was completely rebuilt in Art Deco style 100 years later, so the passage today has more of a 1930s feel. RAF bombing in May 1940, followed by 1960s…
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The Galerie St Francois in Lausanne is an art nouveau arcade built in the first decade of the 20th century. It slopes downhill, connecting the busy shopping street Rue du Bourg with the main road heading down towards Lausanne train station, the Avenue Benjamin-Constant. The arcade is covered by a curving glass ceiling, with simple…
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The highlight of Geneva’s Passage des Lions is surely the glass ceiling, with its intricate ironwork support and the dome in the centre, even if this is not original from the arcade’s origins in 1910. The four lions that guard the two entrances and give the arcade its name are also star attractions, two of…
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The highlight of Charleroi’s Passage de la Bourse is surely the curve in the length of the arcade, which means the glass ceiling not only curves up to form a rounded roof, but it also curves round the length of the passage. It’s a striking feature as you enter the arcade from the red brick…
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This 1882 arcade lies just north of the city centre in Brussels. With grand columns marking its entrance on the Boulevard, and high ceilings almost as impressive as its neighbours in the Galeries Royales, the Passage du Nord is a three-storey building decorated with nymphs and cherubs, lovely hanging lamps, and an impressive clock up…
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In 2011 the city of Hamburg realised the potential of its covered shopping centres by creating an Arcades Quarter or District. Today, the entrance to the area is marked by large signage hanging over the roads into the area showing ‘Passagen Viertel.’ We asked locals for directions to the ‘Passagen Viertel’ and everyone knew where…
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Hamburg’s Kaiser Galerie was completely refurbished in 2011-14 and has now reopened as a high-end shopping arcade, though still retaining many original features from the 1907 building. The arcade is in the heart of Hamburg’s Passagen Viertel (Arcade District) running from the Grosse Bleiche street to the canal along which other arcades flow. The entrances…
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The Galleria arcade in Hamburg might have lots of art deco features, in the overall mood, with its black and white marble shop frames and its definite art deco shape to the entrance to the upstairs apartments, but it was designed in 1976 in a part of Hamburg that had become rather run down and…
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The highlight of Hamburg’s oldest arcade is surely the Jugendstil murals, which were basically advertising for Gustav Mellin, whose biscuits gave this arcade its name. Amazingly, these were covered up for nobody knows how long until they were discovered in rebuilding the arcade after a devastating fire in 1989. The other highlight is the 100…
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George’s Street Arcade in Dublin runs through the middle of an enormous red sandstone market building, which had to be rebuilt after a disastrous fire gutted much of the building and destroyed the original arcade in 1892. It runs from South Great George’s Street through to Drury Street, close to Dublin Castle and Temple Bar….
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The Passage du Prince is slightly the poor cousin of its illustrious neighbours in the Galeries Royales. Its glass ceiling is somewhat more modest, its shops not quite so ostentatious. And it is only one storey high, so the ceiling also doesn’t pull the gaze upwards as it does in the other Royal arcades. But…
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Galerie Ravenstein in Brussels almost feels as if it’s the set for a 1950s sci-fi movie. It was built in 1958, at the time Brussels was developing into the home of the new European institutions. It must have looked so futuristic at the time, with its dramatic round glass ceiling, its ornate tiling, and the…
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Passage Verdeau is the third in a line of arcades that extends northwards, starting at the Passage des Panoramas, continuing through the Passage Jouffroy, and finishing at the northern end of Passage Verdeau, which opens out onto rue du Faubourg Montmartre. Its glass ceiling, with its fishbone window frames, is perhaps this arcade’s most striking…
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The Theatre Royal is perhaps the main feature of the Galerie de la Reine in Brussels, with its Magritte-painted domed ceiling, still drawing in theatre-goers over 100 years since it first opened. The Galerie de la Reine is really just the continuation of the Galerie du Roi, extending beyond the central section towards the north….
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This 1847 beauty with its high glass ceiling and iron framed windows is buzzing today with a wonderful mix of old traders (the Neuhaus chocolate shop dating from 1857, with the original N in its stained glass windows; the Italian glove shop from 1890; the Brussels lace shop), and the more modern arty shops, with…
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The Passage du Grand Cerf is said to have the tallest ceiling of all Paris’s arcades. It’s only partially glass, though, with classic designs in the moulding of the stone sections. On the way in to the arcade is a stag’s head, displayed like a hunting trophy, no doubt placed there because of the arcade’s…
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A 1905 visitor to Passage Jouffroy, writing in the Berwickshire News, described this passage in a way which could almost have fitted a 2023 visitor: “An arcade of small, tidy shops, with temptingly decked windows exhibiting all kinds of novelties in the shape of toys, fancy articles etc…” The Musee Grevin is one of the…
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When the butcher and financier – Vero and Dodat – put up the funding for this arcade in the centre of Paris, it was known by the more humble title of ‘Passage Vero-Dodat,’ but these days it has taken on the more glamorous ‘galerie’ name, to bring it into line with its neighbours Vivienne and…
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The Galerie Vivienne is probably the most spectacular, eye-catching of the Paris arcades. Whether you look up, down or around, there are stylish delights to feast the eyes, from the tiled mosaic flooring, done by Italians Mazzioli and Facchina, to the classic figures in the coving and ceilings above; with its splendid glass dome, bringing…