Victoria Leeds is a shopping district and leisure area in central Leeds, comprising the 1990 Victoria Quarter, an arcaded complex of restored 19th century and contemporary shopping arcades, and the 2016 Victoria Gate development. Notable for its role in the regeneration of Leeds' city centre, and a programme of restoration and reuse which included commissiong the largest work of stained glass work in Europe, designed by artist Brian Clarke, to cover the newly-pedestrianised Queen Victoria Street, the 1990 scheme created a covered retail district of linked arcades. In 2016 ,the Victoria Quarter was merged with the newly built Victoria Gate complex to form the largest premium retail and leisure venue in Northern England. The district includes a casino and major stores such as Harvey Nichols and John Lewis and Partners.
Victoria Quarter
The Grade II* listed Victoria Quarter is a network of interconnected, covered shopping spaces, forming an upmarket shopping district popularly known as 'the Knightsbridge of the North'. Created in a major redevelopment programme through the restoration of the existing Victorian and Edwardian arcades, and the creation of a contemporary arcade through the pedestrianisation and glazing over of the adjacent Queen Victoria Street with what was at the time the largest work of public art in England, and the largest secular stained glass work in the world, designed by artist Brian Clarke. Covering three blocks between Briggate and Vicar Lane, comprising County Arcade, Cross Arcade, Queen Victoria Street and King Edward Street, the Derek Latham & Company redevelopment opened as the Victoria Quarter in September 1990. The project is widely cited as an exemplar of successful and contextual urban regeneration, and in 1991 the full scheme was awarded both the Leeds Award for Architecture (with the stained glass canopy receiving an award individually, in addition) and the Civic Trust Award; in 2013 Victoria Quarter received another Leeds Architecture Award, for its contribution to the city's redevelopment.
Early history
County Arcade and Cross Arcade were built by the Leeds Estate Company, who commissioned theatre architect Frank Matcham to design them as part of the Company's redevelopment of the east side of Briggate and west side of Vicar Lane, which the City Engineer had recommended, to Leeds City Council in 1896, be widened. Matcham's newly-constructed Empire Theatre, around which the arcades were built, was intended to form the focal point of a civic complex modelled on the Galleria in Milan. The “largest and most elaborate,<ref name="Iron, Ornament and architecture" and the latest constructed, of Leeds' 19th century and fin de siècle arcades, with construction begun in 1898 and completed in 1904, they were notable for their glazed barrel roofing decorated with copious amounts of faïence from the local Burmantofts Pottery, a number of mosaics and plentiful use of marble. Matcham's development included the Empire Theatre and all three constructions were in the same style: three storeys decorated in a 'free baroque style' with pink and buff terracotta. In 1961, the Empire Theatre was demolished to make way for another arcade in contemporary style.
Redevelopment
Having become dilapidated, the County and Cross Arcades were restored by Derek Latham & Co in phases between 1989 and 1996, and Queen Victoria Street was glazed over in its entirety with a stained glass canopy by British artist Brian Clarke, bridging the two elevations of Queen Victoria Street on a self-supporting stainless steel and glass, split-level structure that sits between the original, listed buildings by Matcham. In the redevelopment, the 1960s arcade that had replaced the Empire Theatre was demolished and replaced by a branch of Harvey Nichols, which opened in 1996 as the first branch of the luxury store, now operating globally, outside London.