avenue

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Avenue [ avəˈnyː ] ( French from Latin advenire , “to arrive”) or [ 'ævənjuː ] ( English ) is a name for a wide street in cities, mostly lined with trees . In Russian-speaking areas, the term prospectus ( Russian проспект , from Latin : prōspectus [m.], "View", "view"; short: Pr. Or Prosp. ) Is common.

etymology

Etymologically, the word “avenue” has undergone a change in meaning. "Avenue" originally meant "arrival" in the French language, then in the 16th century "driveway", in the 17th century " avenue " and finally in the 19th century "broad street in a city". It is the substantiated feminine of the past participle from the outdated “avenir” (to arrive), which is also reflected in the Spanish-Portuguese doublet “Avenida”.

Paris avenues

Following the events of the February Revolution in 1848, the French architects and engineers Grillon, Callou and Jacoubet presented a road concept for Paris in June 1848, with the help of which “troops could move faster and be transported 'en masse' through Paris to their destination reach". On August 8, 1848, this road concept was presented to the Minister of the Interior. But it was not until the Parisian city planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann , after his appointment as Prefect in June 1853, that he began to consistently design broad and straight streets in order to disentangle the confused medieval Parisian street pattern and enable a shorter connection to the newly built train stations. The main goal was now the shorter traffic routing; Carrying out troop transports faster in the event of uprisings was at most a secondary objective.

Champs-Élysées

The most famous of the Parisian avenues and the world's most famous street in Paris is the Avenue des Champs-Élysées . It was created in 1616 by Marie de Médicis , when she had acquired land here, planted four rows of elms and linden trees and initially called the road to be built “Cours la Reine”. From 1670 the promenade was called "Grand Cours" when it was cut and lengthened by the horticultural architect André Le Nôtre ; It was not until March 2, 1864 that the road, which was 1910 meters long and 70 meters wide, was given its current name. The most intensive construction phase was between 1670 and 1723, when new trees were also planted.

One of the first and, at 120 meters, the widest to this day was the Avenue Foch (formerly: Avenue de l'Impératrice ) leading to the former Place Charles de Gaulle . After the Paris-based architect Jakob Ignaz Hittorff and Haussmann met for the first time in September 1853, Hittorff suggested a connecting road between today's triumphal arch and the Bois de Boulogne , 37 meters wide, but Haussmann asked for 120 meters. It was built in this width and opened on March 31, 1854. According to the decree of May 3, 1854, the Avenue de l'Opera (698 m; originally: Avenue Napoléon ) followed. Together with the boulevards, the avenues dominated the Parisian street structure and the cityscape.

Delimitations in France

A reprint of the 1807 version of the Commissioner's Grid Plan before it was adopted in 1811

Boulevards , avenues and avenues can be clearly delimited from one another in France. Boulevards were originally ring roads that were laid out on the open space of a former city ​​wall and therefore ran in a semicircle (this includes the Grands Boulevards in Paris). In contrast to the boulevards, avenues were not actually designed for strollers ("flâneurs"), but they fulfilled this function and in 1878 were given gas lanterns ("becs intensifs") and later also sewer systems. Avenues were intended as a straight, direct connection to the “ banlieue ” (suburbs); however, this concept was not consistently pursued. The avenues were initially rural streets with tree planting as side borders before they reached the suburbs of Paris after 1670.

Avenues in German cities

On May 18, 1868, Otto von Bismarck wrote a letter to King Wilhelm of Prussia suggesting the expansion of several bridle paths in the west of Berlin, including the one on Kurfürstendamm . After Bismarck returned to Berlin from Paris (he was ambassador there for a short time in 1862) on the occasion of the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, he voted against the expansion of the Kurfürstendamm as envisaged in the Hobrecht Plan , under the impression of the cityscape of Paris shaped by Georges-Eugène Haussmann as an upscale residential street. In his letter of February 5, 1873 to the secret cabinet councilor Karl von Wilmowski, he called for a generous expansion based on the model of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. In April 1881, the consortium "Kurfürsten Avenue Land Company Limited" with headquarters in London was established for this purpose, followed on December 22nd 1882 by the Kurfürstendamm-Gesellschaft for the development of the Kurfürstendamm. On May 5, 1886, the "Ku'damm" was completed. The boulevard Unter den Linden, which was built a century earlier, with its extension Straße des 17. Juni with the Brandenburg Gate and Victory Column is still the most representative avenue in Berlin.

Leopoldstrasse in Munich with the Siegestor, behind it the Ludwigstrasse

In Munich's royal era, four boulevards were built in succession since 1808, some of which were loosened up by representative squares or lengthened by continuing their diagonals with adjacent streets. After Brienner Strasse with Königsplatz, Ludwigstrasse and the adjoining Leopoldstrasse were one of the most monumental avenues in Europe. Then Maximilianstrasse was built with a distant view of the Maximilianeum. Prinzregentenstrasse was last built . With the exception of Maximilianstrasse, these boulevards played an important role in the self-portrayal of the regime in the Nazi era. The dictator's official private address was on Prinzregentenstrasse. All four boulevards were then affected in their architectural appearance by the construction of the old town ring after the Second World War .

Avenues in American cities

The Avenue des Champs-Elysees inspired the construction of the world's Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City , the Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia . The Washington Mall (now the National Mall ) planned by Pierre L'Enfant between the Capitol and Washington Monument in Washington, DC in 1791 was planned as "Grand Avenue with a width of 122 meters and a length of about a mile", but it is neither an avenue still a square, but a patch of grass.

The right-angled street grid system ( "grid pattern" ) in Manhattan with avenues in north-south and streets in east-west direction, presented on March 21, 1811 by New York chief cartographer John Randel Jr., was approved by the Commissioners' plan on March 22 Approved in 1811 and gradually implemented (see also Randel Plan ). Randel spent the next 10 years developing the road connections from First Street to 155th Street in Manhattan in a checkerboard fashion, without taking the topography into account . In 1814 he improved his cartographic records. Eleven avenues were created with a width of about 33 meters, crossed at right angles by 155 streets with a width between 15 and 33 meters. In 1864, a year before his death, Randel called this grid pattern “the pride and fame of the city”. The only exception to the "grid pattern" is the diagonal Broadway , which existed as early as 1642 when the Dutch explorer David de Vries arrived and was later given the Dutch name "Breede weg". It was decided not to give most of the 11 avenues and 155 streets names, but to number them consecutively. In other American cities, “avenues” refer to specific districts, such as the Richmond District and Sunset District in San Francisco . Since then, avenues have become the essential components of the street grid in many North American cities .

Other famous avenues

Fifth avenue

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Boris Parashkevov, words and names of the same origin and structure , 2004, p. 29
  2. ↑ Edme Jean Louis Grillon / G. Callou / Théodore Jacoubet, Études d'un nuveau système d'alignements et de percements de voies publiques faites en 1840 et 1841 , 1848, p. 26
  3. ^ Donald J. Olsen, The City as a Work of Art , 1986, p. 44
  4. ^ Adam Waldie, The Select Circulating Library , 1841, p. 309
  5. ↑ The "Cours la Reine" is today a 6,800 square meter and 540 meter long promenade on the north bank of the Seine between the Place de la Concorde and the Place du Canada
  6. ^ David Harvey, Paris: Capital of Modernity , 2005, p. 12
  7. ^ Henry W. Lawrence, City Trees , 2008, p. 37
  8. ↑ PDF file (24.57 MB) from Deutsche Bauzeitung , Volume 50, p. 444
  9. ↑ Peter-Alexander Bösel, Der Kurfürstendamm , 2008, p. 7
  10. ↑ Paris.fr Le jardin des Champs-Elysées
  11. ^ Nathan Blazer / Cynthia A. Field (Eds.), The National Mall , 2008, p. 55
  12. ↑ New York Times, March 20, 2011, No Hero in 1811, Street Grid's Father Was Showered With Produce, Not Praise
  13. ↑ Steve Tiesdell / Matthew Carmona, Urban Design Reader , 2007, p. 73