London's iconic Harrods department store has announced plans to strip out and modernize its famous Egyptian-themed central escalators, which will include removing all decorative elements bearing the image of the late Mohamed Al-Fayed. The extensive renovation project aims to address what many critics view as the store's cramped and claustrophobic interior design.
The current escalator system has become a visible symbol of Harrods' design challenges. Due to the store's piecemeal expansion over the years, gradually swallowing up neighboring shops until it occupied the entire block, the interior has developed a notably claustrophobic atmosphere. While the building presents an impressive facade and grand ground floor, the upper levels resemble more of an indoor market than a luxury department store, despite wildly different price tags for similar merchandise.
Traditionally, department stores built their reputation on carefully curated selections of goods chosen by in-house buyers and displayed in grand, impressive spaces. This approach set them apart from regular high street retailers through sophisticated showmanship designed to encourage spending. The key differentiator was internal buying expertise – customers wouldn't expect to find the same brands inside a department store as they would elsewhere on the shopping street.
The retail landscape began shifting in the late 1980s and accelerated through the 1990s when concession spaces became more widely accepted. Today's department stores function more like marketplaces where brands rent floor space and operate with their own staff and branding. This transformation has created shopping challenges – while men can still typically find socks and shoes in dedicated sections, items like trousers are now scattered throughout the store, organized by brand name rather than clothing type.
Despite these changes, most large department stores maintain a sense of grandeur with high ceilings, perfume counters near entrances, and most importantly, impressive central escalators. These escalators serve multiple purposes beyond simple transportation – they function as wayfinding focal points around which the entire store revolves. Retailers strategically position their finest merchandise around these central voids, creating internal shop windows that catch shoppers' attention as they move between floors.
The empty space surrounding grand escalators serves both aesthetic and practical functions. It creates an upscale shopping atmosphere while providing natural light through rooftop skylights, which is crucial for staff health. Many retail workers spend entire days without seeing sunlight, affecting their wellbeing. The author's personal experience working in various stores highlighted this issue – one store placed staff rooms in the basement, prompting employees to take lunchtime walks for fresh air, while another with rooftop facilities provided a much more pleasant environment.
Harrods, despite its international fame, fails to provide this pleasant shopping experience. The store feels cramped with low ceilings and long, winding corridors lined with individual brand concessions that operate independently. While featuring expensive luxury brands and extensive marble decoration throughout the corridors, the space lacks any sense of grandeur, resembling what the author describes as 'a gilded rabbit's warren of a marketplace' that feels more like an upmarket Middle Eastern hotel than a modern retailer.
The current Egyptian-themed escalator system epitomizes the store's spatial limitations. Despite being quite famous, the escalator is remarkably small and, while it does connect the basement to the top floor, this vertical span isn't immediately apparent to users. The space feels dark and oppressive, more reminiscent of an Egyptian tomb than a welcoming pathway designed to encourage spending. The rich decoration cannot compensate for the fundamental design flaws created by the building's low floor heights.
The cramped effect is intensified by practical elements like stroller barriers at each escalator's top, which further contribute to the claustrophobic atmosphere. If the floors were taller, the escalators would be longer with more surrounding space. Instead, despite elaborate decoration, these escalators feel more like back-of-house utility features rather than the grand central escalators they claim to be, surrounded by walls with minimal lighting.
Fortunately, Harrods' current ownership recognizes these issues and is taking action. While some critics worry about losing the artistic elements, previous renovations have shown that decorative pieces can be repurposed elsewhere when possible, as demonstrated when Egyptian-themed rooms were removed several years ago. The new design promises to create at least some grand staircase effect through strategic architectural changes.
The renovation plans include removing bridges and landings to create double-height spaces above certain escalators. Eliminating the Egyptian columns will provide more width and spread the escalators out, creating breathing room and allowing natural light to penetrate into lower levels. A new rooflight will replace the current Egyptian painted ceiling, bringing much-needed illumination to the central space.
While the renovated space still won't match the impressive scale of competitors like Peter Jones, Selfridges, or even the former Debenhams Oxford Street location, achieving that level would require cutting into the profitable indoor market space currently packed with retail concessions. The new design will maintain aesthetic consistency with the rest of Harrods, featuring extensive marble work that appeals to the store's target clientele, even if it doesn't suit all tastes.
Visitors interested in experiencing the Egyptian-themed escalators should visit soon before demolition begins. The renovation project is being led by Make Architects, who are also developing innovative curved escalator designs for the store. This modernization represents a significant step toward addressing Harrods' long-standing spatial challenges while maintaining its luxury market position.
