Wooden stores (Scenes from the Palais-Royal..., n°53)

The Galerie de bois was built in 1786, to separate the courtyard of the Palais-Royal from the garden.
The construction was intended to be temporary, pending the hard construction of the fourth side of the quadrilateral that the Palais-Royal complex was to form. As a result, the wooden gallery resembles a vast plank shed (over 2,000 m²). It is subdivided into two aisles, and thus four rows of stores. In a way, it's the forerunner of the covered shopping passages that would make Paris famous in the 19th century. It is not lit by a glass roof, but by open windows under the overhanging roof. It would not be demolished until 40 years later.