The Origin and Development of Arcades - Essay Example

?Arcades: From Conception to Modern Day Introduction An arcade is basically two side by side buildings with a glass roof above them. The characteristics of this fully developed arcade were “longitudinal space, central space, frontal house, inner and exterior facades, continuous glass vault, and glass dome.”1 This is the simplistic explanation for the arcade. Its purpose and impact is so much greater. Dangerous city streets made arcades necessary. Pedestrians who wanted to shop had to do so while fighting off traffic while slogging through mud. Before the arcades were built, commerce was moving out of the urban core and into the outskirts, where there was less danger and traffic. Arcades changed this, as they provided shoppers a comfortable atmosphere to shop. The consumers were sheltered from the elements in the shopping arcades, while being given a leisurely place to browse. While the true arcades did not come into being until the early 19th Century, they have their origins in Muslim bazaars, which were enclosed spaces where people could gather and shop. These bazaars enclosed not just shopping, but mosques and schools. The arcades were modeled after these bazaars, as the arcades provided the same service to consumers as the bazaars – shelter from the elements, and a collective meeting ground. The arcades flourished throughout the 19th Century, then fell out of favour in the 20th Century, as fewer buildings were constructed symmetrically with a narrow alleyway between them. Officials by then had recognized the health hazard of tightly compacted spaces. Although the arcades diminished, they did not die, as the writings of Walter Benjamin revived interest in them. Benjamin saw the arcades as being a way to provide insight that might elude us in our waking hours, as he thought that they provided “rare shafts of insight [to] illuminate the ruins of our energies that time has passed by.”2 One can now shop in enclosed spaces in both shopping malls and modern-day arcades. The Donegall Arcade in Belfast is just one example of a modern-day arcade. This essay will trace the origins and characteristics of the arcade, explain why they were important to urbanism, how Walter Benjamin reconceived them, and how they are a part of the modern-day fabric. The Social History of the Arcade The arcade, according to Geist (1983)3, has its origins in the Islamic Bazaars (Figure 1).4 Figure 1 – Islamic Bazaar Source: Geiste, J. Arcades. London: MIT Press, 1983, p. 5 These bazaars were building complexes that were necessitated by the hot desert sun of the Muslim countries, The architecture, and Muslim life, “unfolded only in the courtyards.”5 Geist (1983) states that the arcade came into fashion because there was a need for streets that were clean and free of danger. Around 1800, according to Geist (1983), Parisian streets were dangerous and of threatening proportions. Pedestrians were threatened by the carriages and the cars on the poorly designed medieval streets. The streets were also turned into mud by the rain. Thus, there was a need for pedestrians to walk on clean sidewalks that were out of the elements. Koloff (1849)6 states that industry was the reason for the arcades, because industry was the reason why the streets were becoming so crowded. Retail trade withdrew from the city towards what would now be known as the suburbs, and the inner city had to compete with this exodus. The arcade was thus born out of necessity. Large clusters of buildings, which surrounded heavily populated streets, were cut through so that the pedestrian could get out of the crowded streets. In the passageway was commerce - merchants would set up booths to hawk their wares.7 The closed arcades came next, in which the pedestrian could feel that he had set foot in another world that was always dry. It was always warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and never dusty or dirty.8 Geiste (1983) states that the two arcades – the closed and open – appeared at the same time. The open arcades were used for manufacturing and industry, so they were located in districts that housed industry. The closed arcades were for the luxury businesses.9 The arcades were in the planning stages throughout the early 19th Century, according to Geiste (1983), and, by 1830, the arcade was fully developed. By this time, the arcade became symbolic for modern times and was integrated into the modern urban landscape. The arcade that was built during this time that has the most lasting influence, according to Geiste (1983), is the Galerie d'Orleans in Paris (Figure 2).10 Figure 2 - Galerie d'Orleans in Paris Source: www.flicker.com. Accessed 9 April 2013. This arcade possesses the characteristics of the traditional arcade because of its large dimensions, vaulted gas roof and interior facades. The arcade evolved throughout the 19th Century, and its existence was threatened in the 20th Century. This is because the city itself became an undesirable place. The idea of the construction of rows of adjoining buildings was diminished because there was advancing medical knowledge. The people were beginning to understand that they needed fresh air and light to have a healthy life. Constructing buildings tightly together was an idea that was in opposition to this new ideal. In this new idea for the city, in which the buildings were spaced differently than they were in the 19th Century, and where the individual building was a separate entity, not a part of a larger whole, the idea of the arcade came to an effective end. The Friederichstrassenpassage in Berlin was the last traditional arcade in the classic form that was permitted by building authorities in the city (Figure 3).11 Figure 3 – Friederichstrassenpassage in Berlin, Germany Source: Geiste, J. Arcades. London: MIT Press, 1983, p. 94. Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project It was after the arcade declined because of the new building codes that Walter Benjamin became interested in them. Benjamin, according to Richter (2000), was a philosopher who looked at the modern subjects by rethinking the historical itself.12 He believed that the past mirrors itself in rebirth and also in aging and decay.13 He saw history as having a time rupture between the past and the present. This informed his alternative view of history, while constructing a vivid image of the everyday experience.14 He was fascinated by the arcades, according to McCole (1993)15 because he saw in them both the old, as the arcades have, throughout history, been a place where the merchants can hawk their wares. This is shown by the Islamic Bazaar, which was the father to the arcade, and the modern – the modern day arcades were places that housed fashion and consumption. Benjamin saw the arcades as a modern-day maze, which was an image that Benjamin used to denote the old.16 The arcades became, in his writing, the passageway to the underworld, and to our dreams – when we are awake, we do not see the connections, but, when we are asleep, these connections become apparent. There is a passage from one world to the next, and the arcades themselves were known as passages.17 Benjamin also managed to integrate his fascination with mythology into his framing of the arcades, and mythology was an underpinning for his sense of justice and law.18 Thus, Benjamin conceived of the arcade as being the tunnel from the real world to the underworld, and from the dream world to the waking world. As Gilloch (2002) notes, the surrealist movement saw the everyday objects, edifices and experiences of 19th Century Paris as illusions and phantoms. These are the elements of a dream world.19 Buse et al. (2005) states that when Benjamin conceived of the arcades as the sort of surrealist passageway of his writings, the arcades were in a state of decay. This is why the surrealists used them as a jumping off point for their ideas. 20 Thus, Benjamin was able to take the seemingly mundane, one of the symbols of modern times, and give society a new awareness regarding the structures. This is, according to Pendergrast,21 a particular talent of Benjamin, as he “had a highly developed taste, even a genius, for the aleatory; sniffing out the more obscure corners and recesses of modernity, he would stumble by chance, or at least as if by chance, on the thing that could be guaranteed to take you by surprise, which jolts you into a question, or a questioning frame of mind and a new awareness of the phenomenon under investigation.”22 Buse et al. (2005) further notes that the reason why Benjamin chose the arcades for his examination of the surreal is because Benjamin was interested in preserving past cultural artifacts, and bringing new meaning to them. Benjamin saw the arcade as being an object that was part of the 19th Century discards, a sign of an earlier time, and that the reality of the arcades is that of commodity obsession. Fashion, in particular, was a part of this world, because of the fleeting nature of fashion. This is like a passing dream. Benjamin saw commodities that appear in the exhibitions, advertising and the arcades, as being like a phantom. The city, too, has become phantom-like and fleeting, according to Virillio.23 The rise of technology has made the city almost unnecessary to daily living, as people do not have to live, or work, in the urban core. Consequently, the urban core has decayed, as it is no longer being considered a regional hub. Thus, like fashion, commodities and the arcades, the cities are not built to last. The material culture that is represented by the arcades became a place where the collective psyche of the city come together. The arcades are places where there were shared collective spaces that represent joining of the consciousness and unconsciousness, the past and the present.24 These are ideal images, according to Benjamin, and in these images, the collective tries to transform society. At the same time, these ideals make us break with the recent past. Through this, society is able to get back to the has come before. Society also has to have a connection to the new, in that this connection to the new is a bridge to ideal world that “leave their traces in a thousand configurations of life, from permanent buildings to ephemeral fashions.”25 This is another reason why the bridge from the past to the future that the arcades represented to Benjamin was important – they make the fleeting somewhat less so, and puts society in touch with the ideal world. The very concept of urbanism also fit into Benjamin's frame. The rise of the arcades coincided with the rise in urbanism.26 Wirth (1938) explains that urbanism heralded modern times. The growth of cities was the mark of the modern civilization. Mankind became concentrated in urban cores, instead of being nomadic and spread out as he was before. Yet, the people who live in the cities retained the vestiges of what came before – the people who settled in the cities were basically the same people who in earlier generations were the farmers, the manor and the villagers. The personalities in the early urban societies still had parts of the earlier folk societies – there was not a discontinuation from one society to the other. This is because the cities did not spring up instantly, but were products of growth.27 This would also fit into Benjamin's philosophy and ideas about the past and present linking together. The arcade links the past to the present, which is represented in the city itself. The city displayed parts of both. The people were living in close quarters, which were the present, yet they retained some of the rural mind-set, which was the past. Benjamin was also interested in the concept of the flaneur, and how he was affected by the arcades.28 The flaneur is the type of person who enjoys people watching and hanging around. The flaneur, prior to the construction of the arcades, was threatened by the busy streets, but, in the arcade, he was in his element – it was a relaxed, yet busy, atmosphere, so it was the ideal place for the flaneur to hang around. Like the arcades themselves, the flaneurs were endangered by Benjamin's time, because mass production was once more in the busy streets. However, the flaneurs, in the arcade, also represented a kind of dream and illusion, because the flaneur could pretend that modern existence was beautiful. The flanerie in modern times is still in existence, just in different forms – there are elements of the flanerie in television, newspapers and radio.29 Thus, the flanerie has much in common with the arcade – the flaneur, like the arcade, did not survive into modern times in the same form. Like the arcade, however, the flaneur lives on in different forms – the arcade lives on in modern shopping malls, and the flanerie lives on through our mass media. Thus, both the arcade and the flaneur provide a bridge from the past to the present, and this is what interested Benjamin about both subjects. McDonough (2002)30 states that the flaneur has something else in common with the arcades - just like the surrealists, and Benjamin, saw the arcades as being a kind of phantom, so, too, did the flanerie. Their illusion is that everybody on the streets were transparent. The flaneur could make a deduction about the passerby by watching him.31 Thus, the flanerie and the arcades both provided a kind of illusion to the world – the flanerie that he was all seeing. The arcades provided the illusion to its patrons of a perfect world with no rain, snow or mud. The Arcades in Modern Life While the arcades of the past are relegated to history, and brought to life once more by the writings of Walter Benjamin, there are still marks of the arcade concept in everyday modern life. For instance, MacKeith (1986)32 notes that modern shopping centres have much of the characteristics of the arcades built during the 19th and 20th Centuries. The arcade declined when modern-day department stores took over, but the modern shopping centre took the place of the traditional arcades. The shopping developments were then relocated out of the city centres and into the suburb, where there was cheaper land and free parking for the consumers. The modern day shopping centres use the concept of indoor shopping, and increased the units and the spaces. Therefore, while it has the same concept as the arcade, in that it provides a way for consumers to shop out of the elements, it also diverges from the concept of the arcade, as it is not two buildings which are tightly wedged together. The modern day shopping centres are also unlike arcades, in that they aren't a way of linking two streets, but, rather, a complete indoor town centre. These shopping centres formerly were not really integrated with the surrounding community, but they increasingly are integrated into the urban fabric that surrounds them.33There are different plans that these shopping centres might use, from rectangular plans with two levels, to more sprawling plans with many levels. It is possible to enter these dwellings from multiple streets.34 The Donegall Street Arcade is an example of an arcade that, as with the arcades studied by Benjamin, represents a link to our past, as it no longer exists in the arcade form (Figure 5).35 Figure 4 – Donegal Street Arcade Source: www.urbanghostsmedia.com Accessed 15 April 2013. Donegall Street Arcade is located in Donegall Street, North –East Belfast, in an area known as the Cathedral Quarter. This was once the centre of Belfast’s warehousing trade. The arcade was built in 1820 as a Mill Warehouse, because the Belfast linen industry was thriving during this period. The building was remodeled in 1936 in the Art Deco style, which is exemplified by the Chrysler Building in New York (Figure 5).36 Figure 5 – Chrysler Building in New York City Source: www.commons.wikimedia.org. Accessed 16 April 2013. The Art Deco style is seen in its use of geometric shapes, its minimal decorative style, and its use of steel and concrete. The arcade made a passageway from Donegall Street to North Street, and the pavement was Terrazzo. The shops lined the Terrazzo pavement. The glass roof was also in the style of Art Deco, as the frame was steel, and the glass itself was domed. During its existence, the arcade had many varied shops that were rich in character and life. Thus, as with Benjamin's view of the arcade, the site itself is a phantom. Like the flaneur and the arcade, it does not exist in its present form. Yet it informs our present, because the facade is still in existence. It is a sad shell of what was, yet there are marks of the past in the building. Conclusion Shopping arcades have had an important function in urban life. This is shown by the predecessor to the arcade, the Muslim Bazaars. These bazaars had the function of shielding the patrons from the hot desert sun as they went about their business. They were meeting places for people, and housed many different entities, from religious mosques, to vendors, and beyond. In modern day London and other European cities, there posed a similar need - to shield patrons, and to give them a way to traverse the streets, while keeping out of the elements. It cannot be understated how important these arcades were to urbanism and modernity, because the streets, prior to building these arcades, were undesirable. The streets were medieval, and unpaved. The buildings during this period of time were built close together, and they were symmetrical, so the construction of the buildings during this period yielded themselves to the arcade type of structure. After the arcades were built, the city became a more desirable place to shop, so commerce flourished on the city streets because of the arcades. If not for the arcades, commerce might have diminished in the city and caused a flight from the city into more desirable areas. The retail trade was starting its exodus from the urban core at the time that the arcades appeared, and the arcades appeared to halt this. Arcades fell out of favour in the early part of the 20th Century. This is because it became known that having buildings close together was not healthy. It was at this point that Walter Benjamin revived the arcades in his writings, by looking at them in a different way. For him, the arcades were passageways from dreams to awakening, from our world to the underworld. This is both because they were falling into disrepair, thus became a symbol of the past, and because they were used for fashion, which is fleeting, like a dream. His ideas were reflected in the character of the city itself, and in the philosophy of urbanism, which links the past with the present – the present was the tightly packed nature of the city, and the past was the mindset of the city dwellers. His revival in the interest of the arcades arguably led to the more modern incarnations of the arcade, the shopping mall. The shopping mall could be sprawling, therefore not a true arcade. However, there are still some shopping malls that are actual arcades – building edifices house the stores, and a glass roof provides natural lighting for the patrons. Donegall Arcade in Belfast was an example of this. Thus, although the arcades diminished in the early 20th Century, they never really disappeared, and the modern-day arcades are just as important for commerce as the arcades of antiquity. Word Count – 3,555 (excluding the Reference section and footnotes). References Benjamin, W. “Paris – Capital of the Nineteenth Century.” http://nowherelab.dreamhosters.com/paris%20capital.pdf Buck-Morss, S.“The Flaneur, the Sandwichman and the Whore: The Politics of Loitering.” New German Critique, 39 (1986): 99-140. Buse, P., Hirschkop, K., McCracken, S. & Taithe, B. (2005) Benjamin's Arcades: An unGuided Tour. New York: Manchester University Press. Geiste, J. (1983) Arcades. London: MIT Press. Gilloch, G. (2002) Critical Constellations. London: Polity Press Jacobs, C. (1999) In the Language of Walter Benjamin. London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Hanssen, B. (1998) Walter Benjamin's Other History. London: University of California Press. Kolloff, E. (1849) Paris ein Reisehandbuch. London: Nabu Press Lindroos, K. (1998) Now-Time/Image-Space. Jyvaskyla, Finland: SoPhi Press. MacKeith, M. (1986) The History and Conservation of Shopping Arcades. London: Mansell Publishing Limited, McCole, J. (1993) Walter Benjamin and the Antinomies of Tradition. London: Cornell University Press. McDonough, T. “The Crimes of the Flaneur,” October, 103 (2002): 101-122. Prendergast, C. (2000) Benjamin and correspondences. In Walter Benjamin Language Literature History. Ed. Ragnihild Reinton & Dag Andersson. Oslo, Norway: The University of Oslo. Richter, G. (2000) Walter Benjamin and the Corpus of Autobiography. Detroit: Wayne State Press. Virillio, P. “The Overexposed City,” in L'Espace Critique. Trans. Astrid Hustvedt. (Paris: Christian Bourgeois, 1984). Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings Volume 1: 1913-1926. Ed. Marcus Bullock & Michael Jennings. London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press Ward, G. Donegall Arcade, Belfast. Available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gerryward/2263865880/ Photos 1. Figure 1 – Islamic Bazaar Geiste, J. Arcades. London: MIT Press, 1983, p. 5. 2. Figure 2 - Galerie d'Orleans in Paris Source: www.flicker.com. Accessed 9 April 2013. 3. Figure 3 – Friederichstrassenpassage in Berlin, Germany Source: Geiste, J. Arcades. London: MIT Press, 1983, p. 94. 4. Figure 4 – Donegal Street Arcade Source: www.urbanghostsmedia.com Accessed 15 April 2013. 5. Figure 5 – Chrysler Building in New York City Source: www.commons.wikimedia.org. Accessed 16 April 2013. Read More