The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space

Part I: Filters
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Jane Rendell
and menageries. The “bazaar” also evoked otherworldliness through the signifying
qualities of the name itself—the exoticism of the “unknown” East.
Bazaars represented magical spaces of enchantment, sites of intoxication
and desire, inspired by the enticing display of luxurious commodities—
dresses, accessories, millinery—with satiation promised through their consumption.
“A new kind of establishment for the shew and sale of goods in London
has begun, and which by the Indians are called Bazaars, or collections
of small shops in one space.” 31 The first London bazaar was the Soho Bazaar,
a conversion of a warehouse by John Trotter in 1816. It occupied several
houses on the northwest corner of Soho Square with counters on two floors.
The Western Exchange was built in the same year at 10 Old Bond Street,
adjoining the Burlington Arcade. In 1834 the Pantheon, an assembly room
on Oxford Street, was converted to a bazaar and picture gallery; it sold drapery,
outfitting, accessories, children’s clothes, books, sheet music, fancy
goods, and toys, with an aviary and conservatory for the sale of birds and
plants. Other bazaars followed rapidly in Leicester Square, Newman Street,
Bond Street, James Street, and the Strand. 32 By the 1830s they included the
Royal London bazaar, the Baker Street bazaar, the Horse bazaar, and the
coach bazaar or Pantechnicon at Moycombe Street in Belgravia.
WOMEN AT THE MARKET
“It consists of two large floors, in which upwards of 200 female dealers are
daily occupied in the sale of almost every article of human consumption.” 33
The Soho Bazaar, as described here, was set up with the express purpose of
providing work for women; it was a place where widows and orphans of
army officers could sell items that they had made. 34 Women were intended
to be the main employees of the bazaars—“the officiating priestesses of this
great vanity-fair.” Of the two hundred people working there, only two were
men. 35 Women were also intended to be the consumers in these new palaces
of commodity consumption: “The articles sold are almost exclusively pertaining
to the dress and personal decoration of ladies and children; such as
millinery, lace, gloves, jewellery etc.” 36
In these nascent spaces of commodity capitalism, it was essential
to entrepreneurs, like Trotter, that profits be made. As new consumers,
middle- and working-class women had to be present for the bazaar to succeed.
Bazaars were promoted as places of charity, where upper-class women
sold wares to raise funds for orphans and other destitutes. Contemporary
novels aimed at women readers depicted shopping venues as respectable
female zones. 37 In a period of rising evangelism, images of femininity and