Historic Shopping Arcades and Covered Passages

Long before the shopping mall, cities built streets of shops under glass. This gallery walks through historic shopping arcades and covered passages, from the Paris passages to Milan's cross-shaped Galleria and the Victorian arcades of Melbourne, Sydney and England. The test for a place here: a covered pedestrian street lined with shops, cafés or restaurants, built between the 1790s and the 1920s, that people still walk through today. Most photos look along the arcade itself; a few show an entrance or facade that matters as much as the inside. They run in order of opening, so you can watch the idea spread from Paris and London across Europe, the United States and Australia. Department stores, including Moscow's GUM, are left to a separate gallery.