Cities with great boulevards

[SHiRO]

Originally Posted by SrbijaCG

Judging from the site De Snor provided, Dutchie

Because looking at satellite pics is the best way to judge the monotonousness (new word?) of boulevards, right Canadian kid?

[niko333]

yeah, and Ljubljana is way better than Vienna.

[Mercutio]

There is nothing montonous about Barcelona's boulevards. I think they are very similar to Paris's but Barcelona has far more of them (a massive grid) and they are more colourful. Indeed their colour variety makes them less monotonous than Paris's endless creams and greys. Perhaps's Paris's have more particularity in so far as they are not in a grid but they are still of a consistent style and scale. I agree that these two cities are the obvious contenders for the title. Other cities have grand streets but only Paris and Barcelona have a large number of streets with a consistent "boulevard" style. London's grand streets, for instance, are all different from one another. There is no single or consistent style. And only one or two of them have that "boulevard" look and streetlife. Vienna and St Petersburg have some fine boulevards which definitely have the appropriate look but they don't have enough of them to dethrone Paris or Barcelona.

[Grumpy]

@ SHiRO , could you tell us more about those huge boulevards in BCN like when were they planned and by whom?

The Gran Via is probably the widest , the Diagonal has 2 tramways and the Meridiana got an entire new surface last year.Still the Diagonal is U/C in the Poble Nou district.
I know there are more boulevards but these are best known I guess

[SHiRO]

I'm actually going to BCN in 3 days, so maybe I'll find the time to take a few pics!

[northstar]

^Enjoy! I came back from Barcelona 5 days ago, had a wonderful time!

I've never been to Paris, but of those cities I've been to, Barcelona and Budapest have nice avenues.

[SHiRO]

Thanks! Good to hear you had a great time.
Barcelona is actually my second home town and I go there 3-4 times a year.
I just have to fly/drive there and I can stay with family. Life is good!

[Grumpy]

Since SHiRO is going to take some BCN boulevards shots , the famous Champs Elysées from Paris

[Metropolitan]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

Since SHiRO is going to take some BCN boulevards shots , the famous Champs Elysées from Paris

Actually Grumpy, that's not the Champs-Elysées !

The Champs-Elysées are located in the back of that picture. The main avenue which is pictured here from the Arc de Triomphe to La Défense consists actually firstly of the Avenue de la Grande Armée in Paris, then of the Avenue Charles-de-Gaulle in Neuilly, and finally of the Esplanade of La Défense (between Courbevoie and Puteaux).

This axis is usually known as the Historical axis, and actually starts at the Louvre to end in La Défense. The Seine-Arche project is currently extending it even beyond La Défense in Nanterre.

Here is a picture (though not the best) of the Champs-Elysées:

[villelumiere]

Originally Posted by Just Build It

I quite like Barcelona, but I don't think anything tops Paris for Boulevards. Les Champs d'Elysees is the greatest of European boulevards in my opinion.

It is the greatest set piece boul on Earth but what is a boulevard? It is a street or life and style, of cafes and theatres, of cinemas and restaurants, of showing off and people watching.

les Grands Boulevards - Italiens, capucines etc - are not what they were perhaps but still retain a sense of Parisien vim and vitality which have to an extent moved to republique etc and are the greatest european Bouls.

[Fabb]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

Paris & BCN do have great boulevards , something London got none of ... how come ?

As a matter of fact, Napoleon III was an admirer of Regent's Street in London. I think that it was the prototype of the "grands boulevards" in Paris.

The Champs Elysées is a different story. To me, it doesn't qualify as a boulevard.

[BenL]

Originally Posted by Grumpy

Paris & BCN do have great boulevards , something London got none of ... how come ?

Mainly because it's such an unplanned city. With the Industrial Revolution getting underway whilst the rest of Europe were building beautiful boulevards, London just built with very few planning restrictions. And in the resulting mess lies much of the city's charm.

There is one true boulevard in the London though:

The Mall

In answer to the original poster's question, Paris and Barcelona stand out far beyond any other competition. An honourable mention should also go to Berlin.

[javierdiaz]

Madrid

[Metropolitan]

Well, it's of course a matter of taste, but I can't help thinking that boulevards represent the quintessence of what I consider as urban. It's on the widest and most swarming boulevards that you feel that special buzz of big cities.

Actually, the lack of such boulevards is particularly the reason why London is such a frustrating city to me. It pretends to be the center of Europe, if not the world, but it lacks that specific buzz coming from wide boulevards. Also it is true that the average building in London is very small (about 3 stories) which contributes to make feel London, at street level, as a relatively "calm" city considering its size. Actually, my sister and her husband like to say that what they love in London is that it has the quality of life of a provincial city with all the advantages of a large city. With time, I tend more and more to realize that, actually, this description isn't that wrong.

Anyway, I can't let anyone saying that all boulevards in Paris are similar. The athmosphere from a boulevard to another is widely different, even in the city proper. We cannot compare the feeling of the Boulevard Saint-Germain to the one of Boulevard des Italiens. Same goes with the Champs-Elysées that can't be compared to the nearby Avenue Foch. Boulevard Voltaire has nothing in common with the boulevard Montparnasse, and both are themselves very different from Boulevard Sebastopol. All these boulevards are the best representatives of the neighbourhoods they cut through ; and those neighbourhoods vary massively, from intellectual areas to more popular ones, from business areas to ethnic districts, and so on and so forth.

Anyway, I guess it's the same everywhere. When we discover a city as a visitor, we get firstly absorbed by the overall athmosphere of it. One needs to stay longer in a city to realize how different is each neighbourhood to one another.

[javierdiaz]

Madrid:




Barcelona: