Les Passages Couverts de Paris 1

You are walking toward an architectural anomaly in the heart of the city that functions like an indoor street. These covered passages, or passages couverts, were built in the early nineteenth century to create a network of private, weather-protected shortcuts through the densest blocks of Paris. Before the city installed wide sidewalks, these galleries provided a clean, lit, and dry environment for the bourgeoisie to shop and socialize away from the muddy, chaotic carriage traffic of the public thoroughfares. They represent a brief but intense moment in urban history, serving as the direct ancestors of the modern shopping mall.