Jardin du Palais Royal Shops

The gardens of the Palais-Royal, laid out in the 1780s under Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orleans, were ringed with arcaded galleries built specifically to be let out as retail space -- one of the earliest examples in Paris of purpose-built shopping arcades, predating the grand nineteenth-century passages couverts they are often grouped with. At their commercial peak the arcades held some 145 separate boutiques, cafes, reading rooms, and entertainment venues, a density that made the Palais-Royal one of pre- and post-revolutionary Paris's most concentrated shopping and social destinations. The gardens today are best known for Daniel Buren's 1985-86 installation Les Deux Plateaux, an arrangement of black-and-white striped columns of varying heights set into the courtyard, which drew controversy when first installed and has since become one of the most photographed sites in the neighborhood. The surrounding arcades remain home to a mix of independent jewelers, antique and curio dealers, and specialist boutiques; perfumer Serge Lutens opened his first freestanding boutique here in 1992, a tenancy often cited as marking the arcades' late-twentieth-century revival as a fashion and fragrance destination after decades of relative quiet.