Royal Saint-Hubert Galleries

The Royal Saint-Hubert Galleries in Brussels are among the earliest of Europe's grand glazed shopping arcades, and still one of the most graceful. Designed by the architect Jean-Pierre Cluysenaar and built in 1846–1847, the ensemble was opened by King Leopold I on 20 June 1847. It runs for more than 200 metres through a block of the old centre near the Grand-Place, and it is really three galleries in a line, named in December 1846 after the royal family: the King's Gallery, the Queen's Gallery and the smaller Princes' Gallery branching off to the side.

Cluysenaar looked to the Italian Cinquecento rather than to the iron sheds of the railway age. The walls are treated as palace façades — arched, glazed shopfronts divided by pilasters — and over the whole length floats a barrel vault of glass on a delicate cast-iron frame. The effect is of an indoor street, lit from above, where the architecture of a Renaissance square has been stretched into a corridor. On the pediment of the entrance the founders set their motto, Omnibus omnia, "everything for everyone", an idea of a public, open luxury that was new at the time.

The galleries quickly became a meeting place of the city's cultural life. French writers living in or passing through Brussels gathered at the Taverne du Passage, the Théâtre royal des Galeries opened here in June 1847, and on 1 March 1896 the galleries hosted the first public screening of the Lumière brothers' moving pictures in Brussels. The theatre and a cinema still operate under the glass roof, alongside shops and cafés. The ensemble was protected as a historic monument in 1986 and placed on Belgium's tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage in 2008.

The best way to see the galleries is to walk them end to end slowly, looking up: the long perspective of repeated arches and the rhythm of the iron ribs overhead are the real spectacle, and on a grey Brussels day the arcade is filled with a soft, even light that the surrounding streets never have.

Getting there

The Royal Saint-Hubert Galleries are in the centre of Brussels, a few steps from the Grand-Place and about 0.5 km from the heart of the city. Brussels Airport (BRU) is about 11 km away. The nearest railway station is Brussels-Central, a short walk from the galleries and also served by the metro. The arcade is a public passage.