The gallery is a covered passage; all the covered passages are not galleries. Generally, a gallery constitutes a transition space between public/private and inside/outside spaces.

The stoa or portic (1) , in a Greek or Roman temple, is a covered gallery forming a projection in front of the principal entry - as opposed to the peristyle (5) which is a space between the colonnade and the walls of the building which can be either rectangular or circular. In the temples, the peristyle is reserved for the processions and to the faithful crowds.

The gallery, inside the buildings, is used either to serve the rooms of a dwelling with patio or for the access of a beautiful natatio in the thermal baths as in the city of Bath (2).

In the Middle Ages, the ambulatory (3) constitutes an element of the cloister, to allow the praying monks to walk, as at the Fontevraud abbey, as well as in the Romanesque or Gothic churches.

At the Renaissance, the architect Palladio superbly treated in his villas with patios the "loggia-galleries" called barchese such as those of the Serego villa (4) to create a space of transition between the rooms of the villa and the garden.
The " gallery-bridge " of the Chenonceau castle (6) invites to walk from the French garden to the wood, connecting under cover two open spaces. In the classical epoch, in Versailles, J.H. Mansart's Galerie des Glaces - mirror gallery - (8) connects in a monumental way the wings built by Le Vau.
In 1937, the gallery of the Palais de Tokyo Museum of Modern Art (7) declines in a new plastic expression a portico which is an open air gallery.

At the end of the 18th century, the galleries of the Palais Royal (9) built of wood by Fountain in 1786 and destroyed in 1828, are of a more urban use and support business and profit; they are very popular passages. The stone arcades of the Palais Royal garden (10) built in 1792, or those of the rue des Colonnes in 1795, constitute beautiful examples of a feature which is also developed in several towns of France as in Nantes or Autun.
The imperial time sees the return to fashion of the arcaded streets like the rue de Rivoli which is parcelled out arcade by arcade.

L’époque impériale voit revenir les rues à arcades comme la rue de Rivoli qui est lotie arcade par arcade.

The beginning of the 19th century and Haussman's time discovered gossamer-like structures of glass and steel, privileging the daylight, which were used as transitory galleries at the international exhibitions, like the Crystal Palace (11) of Sir Joseph Paxton in 1851.
Commercial galleries are built in many towns, like the galerie Vivienne (12) in 1823 in Paris, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II (14) in Milan in 1867, or the Moscow GOUM (large universal store) (15) in 1893, constituting a vast network of galleries attracting the pedestrian.
The galleries also indicate, by extension, department stores like in 1912 the Galeries Lafayette (13) that Emile Zola uses as setting for his novel "Au bonheur des Dames (Ladies' happiness)".

The 20th century sees the progressive decline of these galleries, some destined to be destroyed or left abandoned. Between 1930 and 1980, these old galleries are used as warehouses or car parks. Since the seventies, there is a strong new interest for those galleries; they are renovated (galerie Vivienne) (12), or rebuilt identically (galerie Colbert) and new ones are built. In Montreal, a network of underground galleries (Ville-Marie by I Mr. Pei in 1970), offering all the services of a metropolis, gives the inhabitants an artificial universe of good quality that supports urban life whatever the season.
Today, the strength and lightness of the materials, makes it possible to innovate, to create new structures and architectural forms, as it is the case for the pyramid at the Carrousel du Louvre (17), built in 1993 by Mr. Pei and Mr. Macary, and the Galeries Lafayette (18) built in Berlin by J Nouvel in 1996. Both take advantage of glass technology, artificial and natural light; the Louvre reversed pyramid diffuses the sky light in an underground world, and Nouvel plays with multiple reflections projected by double cones. It is a scenographic architecture where the visitor is at the same time actor and witness.
In parallel, during the Sixties, the consumer society sees the development of shopping centres which one regards as the direct descendants of the commercial galleries. Unfortunately, commercial marketing is too often taken there more seriously than aesthetics, with some exceptions like the "Galleria Bellushi" (16) in the United States and the "Crystal Galleria" in Australia (19), both built at the end of the 20th century: one gives life inside the shopping centre, and the other opens on a splendid panorama outside.

The galleries constitute an urban form of great utility in the dense urban centres; they are monumental urban public spaces today. They make it possible to create areas that are reserved to the pedestrians and protected from pollution and climatic heat; they can also support artistic expression by some research in the fields of light, materials and decorations.

CF. STREET, PORTICO, STOA, LOGGIA, PERISTYLE, AMBULATORY, COLONNADE, GANTRY, ARCADE, PASSAGE.