Paris passages under their original glass roofs

Paris built its glazed shopping streets between the 1790s and the 1860s, and the surviving twenty-odd differ enormously in how much of the original iron and glass is still overhead: some canopies are untouched, some were relaid in the 1980s, one is a reconstruction that reused the old design. This list separates them, entry by entry, with the build date, what the roof actually is now, and what trades ended up underneath it.

Places in this collection

  • Passage du Prado — An alley existed on this line by the mid-1700s, but it was only roofed in 1925, which makes its glazing a full century younger than everyth…
  • Cour du Commerce Saint-André — An 18th-century lane on the Left Bank, glazed at the north end in 1823 when covered passages came into fashion, with the middle section lef…
  • Passage Puteaux — At 29 metres this is the shortest covered passage in Paris, dated to 1839 by most accounts and 1845 by others, running between Rue Pasquier…
  • Passage du Ponceau — Erected in 1826 between Rue Saint-Denis and Boulevard de Sébastopol, and heavily altered in the 1970s, which cost it much of its 19th-centu…
  • Passage des Princes — The last of the passages built during the 19th century, and the only one on this list that is not the building it was: it was demolished an…
  • Galerie de la Madeleine — Laid out in 1845 off the Place de la Madeleine, with a glass dome over the walkway that carries most of the daylight into it. The tenancy i…
  • Passage du Caire — Begun in 1798, which makes it the second oldest in Paris and, at around 550 feet, the longest. The Egyptian revival scheme at the Place du…
  • Passage Brady — Built in 1828 and cut in two by Boulevard de Strasbourg when Haussmann's works came through, leaving the eastern half open to the sky and t…
  • Galerie de Montpensier — The west arcade of the Palais-Royal, dating from 1784 and the earliest of the covered shopping walks in the city, predating the passage boo…
  • Passage des Deux Pavillons — A covered walkway of 1820 linking Rue de Beaujolais to Rue des Petits-Champs beside the Palais-Royal, and the shortest of the group near th…
  • Passage du Grand Cerf — Built in 1825 and named for the stag's head mounted at the Rue Saint-Denis entrance. Its glass and wrought-iron roof rises over three store…
  • Passage Verdeau — Built in 1846 as the northern continuation of the Jouffroy and Panoramas chain, so that a walker could cross four blocks under glass. The a…
  • Passage Choiseul — An extension of Rue de Choiseul dating from 1826, listed as a historic monument in part for its long glass canopy and unusual three-storey…
  • Passage des Panoramas — The oldest of the surviving passages, opened at the turn of 1799 to 1800 and named for the two rotundas of panoramic city paintings that on…
  • Passage Jouffroy — The first Paris passage built with no timber at all, framed entirely in metal and glass, dated variously to 1845, 1846 and 1847 depending o…
  • Galerie Véro-Dodat — Opened in 1826 by two butchers who gave it their names, and one of the first passages in the city to be lit by gas, from 1830. The ceiling…
  • Galerie Vivienne — Construction began in 1823 and the gallery opened in 1826 under a steel-and-glass roof that widens into a glazed rotunda halfway along. The…

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