By investigating the historical evidence for the Parisian department stores' campaigns of property acquisition in the nineteenth century, this article argues that not only was an increase in physical scale desired by managers to enlarge their businesses, but that the space of the store was deliberately moulded into a particular cultural form associated with the monument. The economic decisions involved in leasing and acquiring land, and the negotiation of the preferences for building form implied by building regulations, reveal more about how department stores constructed an image for themselves to embody the myth of a new order of commerce.