Overview Of The Burling Arcade

One of the first arcades to emerge in the mid-19th century was The Burling Arcade, and nowadays in known as one of the most famous Arcades in London. The arcade was open in 1819, by the order of “Lord George Cavendish, who had inherited the neighbouring Burlington House” (Highlife, 2009). It was built with seventy two small two storey units, however nowadays majority of the units have been joined together, to make bigger units. When it opened there were 42 leaseholders, six of whom were woman, which at this period of time was extraordinary, as woman had no choices and they had to obey men. However these arcades were not for everyone, only the rich were allowed in and to keep the poorest out was the job of the Beadle. Figure 1 is the north entrance of the Burlington Arcade nowadays, the arcade has not changed much, and the shops are designer ones, which means that still only the well-off can, afford to shop there.
In the 19th century, shopping was extremely difficult; costumers would have to go to multiple different shops and haggle for a price. Until 1852, when Aristide Boucicant a sales clerk realised that there was a need for a new store, a store where costumers could go which would offer them a wider variety of shops. This store is known as Le Bon Marche, it was unlike any of store, it included; new commerce, fixed prices, home delivery, item exchange, sales, reading areas and so much more. The French writer Emile Zola described it as a “cathedral of commerce”; this was because the store specialised in fashion for men, woman and children. In addition it also sold furniture and housewares; however the best part of the food department, which “offers you over 5000 different products, selected from around the world”(Paris Pa...

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...people escape from reality and live in a dream. Even the names of the cinemas had a feel of romance. But disaster struck in the 50’s and 60’s, these were the decades that the majority of households would have televisions, therefore families could experience film in their own living room. This lead to the cinema losing the description of being a “picture palace”(Richard, 2010,p.18). From this a lot of cinemas were either going through closure or demolition; “cinema after cinema has been levelled to make ways for yet another supermarket or department store” (Richard, 2010,p.18). However cinemas are still around nowadays because there is new technology, instead of just watching a film on a big screen, there are 3D films, this new found pleasure, keeps costumers coming to the cinemas. Even though we have this new technology, the romance and dream worlds seemed be lost.