Built between 1865 and 1877, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II is Italy’s oldest still-running shopping gallery and a significant landmark of Milan. The gallery is a four-story arcaded structure topped by a glass dome. The structure took its name after Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of the Kingdom of Italy.
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The glass dome of the Galleria connects two streets named the Piazza del Duomo and Piazza della Scala. The glass and cast iron arcades covered the streets which was a popular design for the shopping arcades during the 19th century. At the center of the gallery, is an octagonal space covered by a glass dome. Overall the gallery led the way to the evolution of modern enclosed shopping malls.
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The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II was much larger in scale than its predecessors. The vaults of the gallery are 14.5 m in width and 8.5 m in height, and the dome is around 37.5 m in diameter and 17.10 m in height. The dome got serious damage during the aerial bombings of World War II. Later, the roof faced complex conservation issues, and the roof underwent some modifications during the 1980s.
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