The Galleria of Vittorio Emanuele II  in Milan might be the world’s first shopping mall (though in truth the Romans had them), built by the architect Mengoni and finished in 1877. It’s still magnificent almost a century and a half later and takes it’s place among the iron matrix wonders of the 19th century, of which the Eiffel Tower is the most famous, though it was finished a decade after the Galleria. Frescoes in the corners of the huge dome at the intersection of the barrel vaults show allegorical figures of the four continents as they were then understood: Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. Even though it’s so old, even today it looks like an architecture of the future.