Galerie Vivienne and Galerie Colbert: Rival Arcades
Why is it significant?
Walk into the Galerie Vivienne and look down first: a floor of mosaic in creamy stone and terracotta, curling into stars and garlands. Then look up: a long glass roof, arched windows, goddesses and anchors in plaster. This is the most elegant of all the Paris passages, and it knows it.
Key Facts
| Place | Galerie Vivienne and Galerie Colbert: Rival Arcades |
|---|---|
| Address | 4 Rue des Petits-Champs, 75002 Paris, France |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.86680, 2.33960 |
| Part of Walk | Glass Roofs and Royal Secrets: From the Louvre to the Covered Passages of Paris |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk into the Galerie Vivienne and look down first: a floor of mosaic in creamy stone and terracotta, curling into stars and garlands. Then look up: a long glass roof, arched windows, goddesses and anchors in plaster. This is the most elegant of all the Paris passages, and it knows it.
It opened in 1826, the work of the president of the Paris notaries, Marchoux, who saw a goldmine in a shortcut between the Palais-Royal and the stock exchange. He was right. Tailors, wine merchants, booksellers and print shops crowded in, and the shoppers followed. Even today there is an old bookshop here that has been selling books under this glass for generations.
One famous tenant lived upstairs: Eugène-François Vidocq, a former convict who became the head of the Sûreté, the first detective police in France. He was a master of disguise who knew every thief in Paris because he had been one. Balzac and Victor Hugo both borrowed from him for their villains and their policemen. Imagine him coming home through this gallery, past the tailors and the wine merchants, perhaps wearing someone else's face.
Now, at the bend of the gallery, slip through into its neighbour. The Galerie Colbert was built right next door, also in the 1820s, as a direct rival. To outshine Vivienne, it was given a showpiece: a great rotunda under a glass dome. For a while the rivalry was fierce, but Colbert never really won the crowds, and it declined much faster.
That decline had a happy ending. The state bought the Galerie Colbert in the 1970s, restored it and gave it to scholars. Today it houses the National Institute of Art History, and its rotunda, with a bronze statue at the centre, is one of the quietest and most beautiful spaces in the city. When you come out on the Rue Vivienne, the long wall across the street hides one of the most magical reading rooms in the world.