I Wish Shopping Still Looked Like This (10 Photos)

Glass-Roofed Shopping Arcades You Can Still Walk Through

Before the mall, cities put a glass roof over a side passage and lined it with shops. These ten went up between 1819 and 1904, and every one still has shops open.

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🐂 Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II — By Giuseppe Mengoni in Milan, Italy 🇮🇹

The view from above the central octagon: an iron-and-glass dome, painted lunettes and a mosaic floor full of people. Work on the Galleria began in 1865, it opened two years later, and it was completed in 1878. Mengoni never saw it finished: he died in a fall from the scaffolding a few days before the official opening.

💡 Bull Fact: The floor holds the coat of arms of Turin, a bull. By tradition, visitors spin on their heel on it for luck, and in 2026 Milan restored the worn mosaic for the first time since 2017.

📷 Photo and cover crop: Angels1964 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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✨ County Arcade — By Frank Matcham in Leeds, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Green and gold iron arches, marble columns and round lamps in the County Arcade, part of the Victoria Quarter built between 1898 and 1904. The painted cast-iron roof has three glazed domes with gilded mosaics, and Matcham’s design is said to have been influenced by Milan’s Galleria.

💡 Rescue Fact: By the 1980s, only six of the original fifty shopfronts were intact. A 1988–90 restoration rescued the arcade from that decline.

📷 Photo: Hullian111 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🏛️ Cleveland Arcade — By John M. Eisenmann and George H. Smith in Cleveland, Ohio, USA 🇺🇸

Five floors of iron balconies stacked along a single glass roof. The Cleveland Arcade opened in May 1890 and was modeled after Milan’s Galleria, the first entry here. A Hyatt hotel has filled the top three floors since 2001, and the lower levels still hold shops and services.

💡 Money Fact: The building cost about $875,000 and was financed by John D. Rockefeller and other leading Cleveland businessmen of the day.

📷 Photo: David Wilson / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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🎩 Burlington Arcade — By Samuel Ware in London, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

A beadle in a top hat and long coat keeps watch at the north end of the Burlington Arcade, built in 1818–19 for Lord George Cavendish. The beadles still enforce the old rules: no whistling, singing, humming or running.

💡 Whistle Fact: The no-whistling rule is said to date from pickpockets who signaled to each other by whistling. Paul McCartney is exempt, and in 2025 whistling champion Geert Chatrou became the third person allowed to whistle in the arcade.

📷 Photo: Anthony O’Neil / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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🧩 The Block Arcade — By David C. Askew in Melbourne, Australia 🇦🇺

Mosaic floors, a glass roof and Christmas garlands in Melbourne’s Block Arcade, whose Collins Street section was finished in 1892. The tiles came from Europe, and a building journal of the time said the floor held the largest area of mosaics yet laid down in Australia.

💡 Name Fact: The name comes from “doing the Block”, the old Melbourne habit of strolling this stretch of Collins Street to see and be seen.

📷 Photo: a.canvas.of.light / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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🛍️ The Strand Arcade — By John B. Spencer in Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺

Three tiers of iron-lace galleries look down on the walkway of Sydney’s Strand Arcade, opened in 1892. It was one of five Victorian arcades built in the city center and the last one still standing. A fire in May 1976 badly damaged the George Street end, and the arcade was restored in 1976–78, including copies of the gilded cast-iron balustrades. The best view is from the top floor.

📷 Photo and cover crop: Chris Olszewski / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🌿 Royal Arcade — By George Skipper in Norwich, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Tiled arches, hanging lanterns and trailing plants in Norwich’s Royal Arcade, opened on May 24, 1899. The Art Nouveau tiles were designed by William James Neatby and made by Doulton.

💡 Praise Fact: At its opening, the arcade was hailed as “a fragment from the Arabian Nights dropped into the heart of the old City.” Poet John Betjeman later said Skipper was to Norwich what Gaudí was to Barcelona.

📷 Photo: FrDr / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🪨 The Arcade — By Russell Warren and James C. Bucklin in Providence, Rhode Island, USA 🇺🇸

Two balcony floors under a glass ceiling in the Arcade, which Warren and Bucklin designed for merchant Cyrus Butler and completed in 1828. It is America’s oldest surviving indoor mall, though not the first. The ground floor still has shops and cafés, and the upper floors became 48 micro-lofts when it reopened in 2013.

💡 Stone Fact: The six granite columns at each end were, when they went up, the largest monoliths in the United States.

📷 Photo: Kaleb Kloppe / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

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☂️ Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert — By Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar in Brussels, Belgium 🇧🇪

A glass vault over arched shop windows and café tables in the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert, inaugurated on June 20, 1847, in the presence of King Leopold I. The roof uses overlapping, fish-scale glass for ventilation, and the gallery was once known as the “Umbrella of Brussels.”

💡 Theater Fact: The gallery has its own theater, and in 1950 René Magritte designed its ceiling.

📷 Photo: Diego Delso / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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🗿 Passage Pommeraye — By Jean-Baptiste Buron and Hippolyte Durand-Gasselin in Nantes, France 🇫🇷

A grand staircase joins three levels of shops and statues in Passage Pommeraye, inaugurated in 1843. The builders had to handle a 9.4-meter drop on a slope of sand and rock, and the developer, Louis Pommeraye, died ruined after the crisis of 1846–47.

💡 Film Fact: Director Jacques Demy used the passage as a set in Lola and Une chambre en ville.

📷 Photo: Chabe01 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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Which one is your favorite?