Why historic arcades are important
There is currently a controversy swirling around the Queen Victoria Building, one of Sydney’s landmark buildings that is one of the port city’s tourist attractions.
The building’s landlord has filed an improvement application to make the building’s multi-coloured glass windows on Market Street ultra-transparent, thus better showcasing the products displayed inside.
The homeowner argues that tinted glass reduces the attractiveness and value of the space to potential retailers.
The colored glass pieces in question are a reglazing process carried out during the restoration of the building in the 1980s, which returned it to its original façade.
The shopping arcade, a fine example of 19th-century Romanesque Revival architecture, is on the state heritage list. Changes can be approved, but only in accordance with specific legislation.
There is a lot of social resistance to changes. The facade is iconic. The tinted glass gives the building a unique character and draws people to the block in a dreary CBD.
There’s already too much boring retail space.
One of the reasons so many of us shop online these days, other than convenience, is that the modern equivalent of the Victorian mall, the mega-mall, is so uninspiring.
Major global retail brands have turned the world’s shopping streets and malls into big, boring advertisements for the same product.
Historic arcades, with their smaller shops and architectural beauties, host independent retailers, often among well-known brands.
Built to protect shoppers from bad weather, the first arcades were also social and cultural centres. QVB is part of this tradition, a meeting place especially at Christmas. So is Sydney’s other retail beauty, the Strand Arcade.
I grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne and we would regularly “head into town” to visit the city’s historic shopping arcades, the Royal Arcade to see the hilariously scary Gog and Magog clock, and the beautiful Block Arcade. There may have been some shopping, but there was also a sense of opportunity. The arcades were centers of attraction in themselves.
The great era of arcade building in Europe occurred between 1786 and the late 1930s. This has had a huge impact on Australia’s shopping landscape.
After the French Revolution, developers in Paris built hundreds of beautiful arcades to connect and enclose shops, only to see around 150 of them razed to the ground by Baron Haussmann in the 19th century. There are fewer than 30 these days; the largest number, nine, is concentrated in district 2 near the Stock Exchange.
The oldest passage is the Passage du Caire, dating from Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign. Another is the Passage des Panoramas, which opened in 1799 and also contains the 215-year-old Theater des Varieties.
The architectural details of the different passages are exquisite, including herringbone glass roofs and cast iron decorations. Some are well preserved, some are a bit run down, but they all offer a fascinating stroll through history.
The Royal Saint-Hubert Galleries in Brussels are three magnificent large interconnected glass-roofed galleries, considered the oldest covered shopping galleries in Europe, built between 1846 and 1847.
In Milan is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (1865-1877), with its magnificent glass and cast-iron vaulted roof connecting the Duomo to the city’s most famous landmarks, the Teatro Alla Scala.
When you enter an ambitious modern shopping mall called “Galleria”, the concept comes from this building.
Budapest’s Parisi Udvar passage was based on the Passage des Panoramas in Paris. Its name means “Paris Court”. Completed in 1913 with art nouveau, Moorish and gothic elements, the building was completely abandoned over the years. It is now a luxury hotel that is part of Hyatt’s Unbound Collection. Although there are no shops, there are cafes and bars you can visit.
In London, in Mayfair, is the magnificent Burlington Arcade, built in 1819 by Lord Burlington so that his wife could shop safely away from the mob on the streets.
Cardiff in Wales is known as the “Pastor City” for having more Victorian and Edwardian arcades than any other city in Britain.
Other notable British arcades include the Argyll Arcade in Glasgow, the city’s first purpose-built shopping mall (1827), and the ostentatious Victoria Quarter in Leeds.
Global luxury brands are seeking to rent in these beautiful buildings for their prestige. The atmosphere is uplifting and shoppers leave more money when they are relaxed.
Only when they are threatened do people realize how important these historical buildings are to them.
QVB was in danger of complete demolition from 1959 to 1971 and was saved.
The current discussion may seem to be about several colored windows. But it’s really about memory, community and pride of place.
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Lee Tulloch Lee is a bestselling novelist, columnist, editor and author. His distinguished career spans more than three decades and includes 12 years spent between New York and Paris. Lee specializes in sustainable and thoughtful travel.Connect via email.
