2021
2(66)
DOI: 10.37190/arc210205
Denise Gaudiot*, João Pernão**, Laura Martins***
The street as sociability space: the case of the Grand Avenues
in Paris and Lisbon in the 19
th
century
Introduction
Lowly, unpurposeful and random as they may appear,
sidewalk contacts are the small change
from which a city’s wealth of public life may grow.
J. Jacobs [1, p. 48]
The Street
The street is the basic element that forms a city, no
matter how big it is. It unites, without touching, two spaces,
private and public, one internal and one external. One for
the autonomous universes (activities, services, symbolic
places connected to the economy), and the other for the
community utility, the co-presence, or other forms of ex-
changes and civility [2, p. 155].
Public spaces and their role in cities have developed
and evolved to the same extent as cities, which integrate
and dene them, have done so. Cities as living organisms
are constantly changing and their public spaces have also
been transformed and adapted.
As the base form of any urban agglomeration, the streets
are a public space par excellence. Their role of access, cir-
culation and meeting have always made them places of
conviviality. Since its origin, a street has been the place
for encounters and interpersonal human relationships.
To talk about the street, it is rst necessary to dene
what is meant by space. The concept of space has always
been added to an adjective, e.g., physical, political, social,
economic, psychological space. Even when we dene
a single adjective, it comes with countless possibilities.
According to Guglielmi [3, p. 88] the concept of street
goes beyond public space and can be encompassed in
a place of interpenetration of spaces, where the public
and the private meet. Guglielmi discusses the view of the
street as a social space and as a political space
1. The street as a social space
The street appears as a stage for meetings and disagree-
ments, where opposite actions can be seen in the sense of
community. At the same time, children can be found playing,
merchants selling, men and women talking, leaving school,
construction workers, street performers, as well as robberies,
murders, ghts, begging, prostitution, to name just a few.
The community needs to know, through these public
gestures, the condition of its members. And it is this notion
of neighborhood that allows the classication of the street,
determined by the social class of its residents and users.
Leguay (1984)
1
(after: [4, p. 11]) describes the street as
a place where everyone observes, makes assumptions and
interprets what they see. It is the scene of everyday life
in a community where the actors play several characters
while watching the show.
It is not only a natural meeting place for people; it is
also intended to prepare for these meetings, regardless of
their purpose.
2. The street as a political space
The street is the space inherent to public demonstra-
tions. This statement is made in view of the countless
1
Leguay J.P., La Rue au Moyen Age, Ouest-France Universitè,
Rennes 1984.
* ORCID: 0000-0002-8879-4524. CIAUD, School of Architec-
ture, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal, e-mail: dg.arquitetura0@
gmail.com
** 0000-0002-4281-5684. CIAUD, School of Architecture, Uni-
versity of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal.
*** ORCID: 0000-0003-0578-7271. Design Department, CAC,
Fe deral University of Pernambuco, Brazil.
52 Denise Gaudiot, João Pernão, Laura Martins
During the Renaissance, the square gains strength and
denes itself as a public space. It is a space for meeting,
political and religious manifestation, prestige and social
life. Within the historical context and as a public space,
the role of the street also changes and takes on the func-
tion of linking other elements that make up cities.
In the baroque centuries the Capital Cities were the ab-
solute centers of the totalitarian power of the State and the
Church. Baroque culture, in this way, would emerge as an
essential instrument for the cooling of the urban masses,
due to their persuasive verve, its appeal to wonder, im-
agination, fantasy. So it should be the city, and not the
rural environment, that presents itself primarily as a great
theater, a spectacle of the supernatural power of the mon-
arch and the Church [6, p. 41].
At the beginning of the 19
th
century, impressed by the
beauty of streets in Milan, Italy and to show his power,
Napoleon wanted a triumphal route through Paris from
east to west as a place of luxury, and he wanted it to bear
the name of Napoleon’s early victory against the Austrian
army, at the Battle of Rivoli, the Rue de Rivoli, connecting
La Place de la Concorde with the Louvre by means of
the Renaissance Italian Style. An ordered arrangement of
façades whose originality lay in the arcades was designed.
This monumentality, with its strict lines and extraordi -
nary perspectival eect, matched perfectly Napoleon’s
desire to build a prestigious and luxurious place for prom-
enading. And in order to ensure its exclusivity, decrees
were passed banning the setting up of certain shops – such
as butcher or sh shops – and shop signs were forbidden
in arcades. It was a clear segregated space for a dominant
class.
Although by the end of the Empire only the arcades
and a few buildings had been erected, the impetus has
been given and the street was to be completed in the fol-
lowing regimes. The extension of the road was decided
by the temporary government of the Second Republic in
1848. Hausmann then took up the project and built the
road to its present place and allowed dierent activities
and businesses.
Even if it was too expensive to live in, it was possible
to walk there and enjoy the street.
During the 19
th
century, with the industrial revolution,
cities went through major changes and became more com-
plex.
In this period, public spaces assume a new social func-
tion that goes beyond the simple exchange of information.
Relationships and social events evolve. Leisure and recre-
ation appear as a function that the city had to oer. This
task fell to its public spaces.
In the post-industrial revolution era, public sidewalks,
avenues and city squares become the places of convivial-
ity, recreation and leisure for its inhabitants [7, p. 5]. The
car cities started to need new places of coexistence.
With the progressive concentration of urban centers to
the detriment of rural areas, the question that is quickly
imposed is the adaptation of the urban fabric to the circu-
lation function in the face of the new development of the
ow of people and goods, within a city model inherited
from the Middle Ages.
historical facts linking the street to social and political
movements. Since ancient Greece, speeches, discussions,
ceremonies, conicts and political demonstrations have
taken place on the streets. The French revolution of 1789
itself took place on the streets of Paris, with its barricades
and struggles between social classes.
It serves as a meeting point for the population to de-
monstrate both their satisfaction and their dissatisfaction
with a political regime or social conditions.
The restructuring of Paris done by Haussmann plans
had many critics. They stated that the concern with the
width of the roads of Paris was not a mere question of mo -
bility and hygiene, but it was connected with the defense,
since the narrow and tortuous streets of medieval time
made it dicult to suppress popular riots that had become
common since the Revolution.
By political manifestations we also understand the com-
me morative military parades, resulting from the victories
and power demonstration by the countries, as a symbol of
pride (Fig. 1).
In fact, and according to Gourdon [2, p. 17], thinking
about the street, whatever its dimensions and variations,
narrow or wide avenues, has always been thinking about
two things, which are sometimes opposed and with which
it is associated. The street is not multifunctional, but mul-
ti-purpose, producing articulations that are the source of
antagonism and also of complementarity between public
and private, where social and political spaces coexist.
And the street becomes avenue
In Greek and Roman cities, public spaces were as-
sociated with the formation of an urban space, as it was
designed according to the public functions that each con-
struction represented. Public spaces, open or outdoors,
were associated with the buildings with specic func-
tions, such as Àgora, for example, involved in the market,
the theater, or the Roman circus, among others.
In the medieval city, the market is an open and public
space par excellence, and the commercial function ex-
tends through the streets.
Fig. 1. Parade 14 July 1919, Place d’Etoile, Paris (source: [5])
Il. 1. Parada 14 lipca 1919 na Placu Gwiazdy w Paryżu (źródło: [5])
The street as sociability space: the case of the Grand Avenues in Paris and Lisbon in the 19
th
century 53
Two characters profoundly marked the transforma-
tions in the spatial model of European cities: Ildelfonso
Cerdà (1815–1876) in Barcelona and Georges Eugenè
Haussmann (1809–1891) in Paris. Despite the dierences
in thought, one engineer and the other a public adminis-
trator, they presented a profound vision of the city in the
Industrial Age and its relationship with the new circula-
tion problems, resulting from urban and social transfor-
mations.
Cerdà was a bridges engineer. He was commissioned
by the Spanish government to carry out the expansion plan
for the city of Barcelona. Its objective was to conceive
a city that harmoniously combined the residential function
with the circulatory function, leaving behind congested
urban conditions and lack of hygiene, which favored ep-
idemics [8, p. 3].
Cerdà publishes the rst theories on urbanism in Teoría
générale d’urbanisation
2
in 1867 [9].
Despite never having used the term urbanism, Cerdà
coined the term urban to designate in general the dier-
ent types of human settlement and the term urbanization
to designate action on the urban [10].
Haussmann, as the mayor of La Seine (1853–1870),
Parisian region, directed the transformations of Paris dur-
ing the Second Empire of Napoleon III. The city, with
narrow and unhealthy streets, compromised economic de-
velopment. With a dierent position from Cerdà, Hauss-
mann does not present a direct concern with the social
matters. Because of that, he was even accused of being
concerned only with the maintenance of order. His plans
facilitated the control of social manifestations by the army
of Napoleon III, with the great dimensions of the avenues
and the destruction of the small streets conducive to bar-
ricades. However, it can be said that there was a perma-
nent attention, on his part, in valuing the great monuments
of Paris, allowing a perspective view through the great
avenues [11].
2
General theory of urbanism (free transl. by D. Gaudiot).
Paris and the “Grands Boulevards”
Les boulevards sont aujourd’hui pour Paris
ce que fut le Grand Canal à Venise
3
.
H. de Balzac [12]
In 1801, Paris had 540,000 inhabitants, in 1846 this
number increased to 1,050,000 inhabitants. In 1849 a new
cholera epidemic killed nearly 19,000 people from all so-
cial classes. In 1853 Napoleon III, faced with an econom-
ic and political crisis, hired Haussmann to develop the
Urban Commision designed by the emperor, and to imple-
ment a major reform in the capital. Haussmann went be-
yond the issue of beautifying the city and proposed public
services as city cleaning, sewer and piped water systems,
as well as a new trac design.
According to Salgueiro [13, pp. 23, 24], Paris assumed
its capital image at the end of the 19
th
century, after suc-
cessive policies for the work of new urbanism and archi-
tecture, mainly under Napoleon III and the “Haussman-
nization” of the city. The simplistic view that saw in the
opening of the boulevards only an act of control over pop-
ular manifestations, begins to give rise to studies on the
responses that the general remodeling of the city gave to
previous representations and pressing urban problems of
health and circulation (Fig. 2).
Modern Paris needed paved streets, garbage collection,
wooded squares, parks, running water, theaters, schools, sew -
ers, transport, standardized buildings with stone fa çades,
public and private lighting and security. Regardless of any
ideology or speculation inherent in this process, the city
would oer new living conditions to the population.
To this end, strict rules were created for new buildings
on the banks of the avenues, respecting the perspective
that was part of the city’s beautication. One of these
rules determined that the buildings had the entrance to
the apartments, independently of those of the places of
3
The boulevards are for Paris today the same as the Big Channel
was to Venice (free transl. by D. Gaudiot).
Fig. 2. Paris’s urban plan,
1851–1870. Plan indicating
the new streets, the new neigh-
borhoods and the two large parks
Bois de Boulogne and Bois
de Vincennes (source: [14])
Il. 2. Plan Paryża, 1851–1870,
zawierający nowe ulice,
nowe dzielnice i dwa duże parki:
Lasek Buloński
i Las de Vincennes (źródło: [14])
54 Denise Gaudiot, João Pernão, Laura Martins
commerce or professional activities. These were general-
ly located on the ground oor, maintaining the connec-
tion between street-housing-commerce. The feeling of the
street endured within a dierent scale of dimensions.
A huge number of buildings were demolished to make
way for great avenues that allowed the articulation between
the city’s circulatory and urban functions. The streets have
become avenues, with housing, commerce and services
and thus places of socialization for the popu lation.
Nevertheless, the new avenues democratic side was only
for the “promenades”. The prices of the real state be came
unavailable to the low and middle classes. They were forced
to move from their houses at the avenues to adjacent streets
or peripheral areas of the capital.
The “Haussmannian” space is the public space – the
street, the sidewalk, and the squares – the space for mobil-
ity. The originality of this project is in the concept of the
circulation and breathing system, which superimposes
hie-
rar chical meshes, belonging to a star network. This design
does not result in a homogeneous space, since the social
division between east and west, between periphery and
center is accentuated, but the idea of a city by sectors has
not yet been adopted. The hierarchy of the communica-
tions system changes the order of values [15, p. 77].
According to Renom [16, p. 80], for industrialized cities,
the 19
th
century is one of growth, modernization, extension
and eventually the movement of traditional services (market,
cemetery, schools, hospital, water supply, public lighting)
and creating new services. The “promenade” is created; pub-
lic leisure spaces are decorated and adorned with gardens.
People dressed in their best clothes and went for walks on
the avenues on foot or in their cars. The concern with the
personal image increased more and more (Fig. 3).
Unlike the old medieval and Renaissance streets, the
great avenues proved to be an open, friendly tool for social-
ization and they accelerated acculturation for immigrants,
whether they came from rural areas, from other cities or
from other countries, as well as nomads and people from
dierent social classes. These public spaces created
new
Fig. 4. Paris during La Belle Époque.
Axis view of a Boulevard de la Madeleine
with cars and chariots
and people sharing the new social space
(source: X Phot, [19])
Il. 4. Paryż w okresie La Belle Époque.
Widok osi Boulevard de la Madeleine
z samochodami i powozami
oraz ludźmi dzielącymi nową przestrzeń społeczną
(źródło: X Phot, [19])
Fig. 3. Boulevard Poissonnière, Paris, winter, 1930.
View indicating the new urban furniture and presence of
coffee shops highlighting the axis of Grand Boulevard
(source: Association Française de Presse, [17])
Il. 3. Bulwar Poissonnière w Paryżu zimą 1930.
Widok przedstawia elementy nowej małej architektury i kawiarnie
podkreślające oś Wielkiego Bulwaru
(źródło: Association Française de Presse, [17])
conditions of sociability. Their large size allowed the meet-
ing between workers, employees, bosses, artists, profession-
als and the entire population, from dierent social levels,
from workers, the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy [18].
In fact, the Grands Boulevards have gradually become
the symbol of the Belle Époque, a period of peace, pros-
perity and carefree. These arteries of Paris were the main
place in terms of entertainment and tourism, attracting the
entire population to a new form of socialization proposed
by the use of the street as a social and political urban
space [17] (Fig. 4).
Thus, Paris becomes a city dierent from other Euro-
pean cities, as it is the rst one that undergoes intense re-
forms to adapt to the new economic and social conditions,
and for having built a new urban space, more compatible
with the new times, and the new bourgeois society.
In this sense, the street, now with another physical di-
mension, is obviously an extraordinary instrument of cohe-
sion among individuals, even if some describe its disadvan-
tages, instead of its merits. A place of emotions, en counters,
movements, shocks and events, it is the place par excel-
lence, at the beginning of this century, where the ex change
of ideas takes place in the face of cultural and social mis-
cegenation.
It is the scenario that prepares for urbanism and mod-
ern architecture.
This Paris that was born from the works of the Sec-
ond Empire, the “Haussmannian” Paris, has, according to
some authors, the ability to become an example and mod-
el, not only for other French cities, but also for many other
more distant ones, such as Lisbon, Cairo or Rio de Janeiro.
The plans of the cities that began to be implemented at
that time, brought a logic of structuring, allowing the rise
The street as sociability space: the case of the Grand Avenues in Paris and Lisbon in the 19
th
century 55
and emergence of new practices and forms in the land-
scape, as well as places of sociability.
The great avenues proposed as sanitation and trac
so lutions have become the new places of sociability that
have survived until today.
Lisbon and the “Avenida da Liberdade”
In Lisbon, Haussmann’s inuence will be present in the
Grande Plan of the Rossio public promenade, known as
the Avenida da Liberdade plan of 1879, by eng. Frederi co
Ressano Garcia.
The opposition of the population was felt since this
project would put an end to Passeio Público, which was
on a par with Chiado, the center of Lisbon’s social life.
The Passeio Público was created after the earthquake of
1755, when much of the city of Lisbon was destroyed and
its reconstruction was slow and prolonged within a daring
urban plan [20].
In the 2
nd
half of the 19
th
century, Europe began to wit-
ness the internationalization of economies, a consequence
of the industrial revolution, which represented a challenge
for the urban world, in the sense of thinking about the
requalication of cities so that they could benet from
the fruits of this experience of globalization. Lisbon, as
a center of commerce, feels the need to adapt to these new
demands.
The industrialization of urban equipment in the 19
th
century is inseparable from the creation of modern ur-
banism and the strategic character that urban intervention
takes on in solving urban problems in the qualication of
cities.
Wide streets were considered essential for urban health-
iness, endowing the city with voluminous masses of air in
movement to keep out miasmatic emanations, in the view
of prophylactic medicine of the 2
nd
half of the last cen-
tury. Modern urban infrastructures, not only in terms of
transport, but also considering drainage and water supply
Fig. 5. Avenida da Liberdade in the late 19
th
century. The greenery draws the path with lines of trees and large sidewalks on both sides of the avenue.
The obelisk in the center dominates
the view as a vertical element
composing the main axis with the roads and the people movement (source: Museum Hallwyl, [23])
Il. 5. Avenida da Liberdade pod koniec XIX w. Zieleń rozciąga się szpalerami drzew po obu stronach alei.
W widoku dominuje znajdujący się pośrodku obelisk
– pionowy element komponujący główną oś z drogami i ruchem ludzi (źródło: Hallwylska museet, [23])
56 Denise Gaudiot, João Pernão, Laura Martins
the north of Lisbon, that is, the region above the low zone
and the Castle, was until the end of the 18
th
century a rural
area, consisting of small farms, some noble houses and
access roads to the city [7, p. 17].
The decision to open a boulevard in the extension of
that garden corresponds eectively, not only to the crea-
tion of another urbanizable area, but to an urbanistic pro-
ject aware of its transforming and developmental mission
in the 19
th
century. At this point, the opening of Avenida
da Liberdade coincides with the ideals of beautication in
the city of Haussmann (Fig. 5).
Avenida da Liberdade thus takes the place of the old
public promenade as a place of sociability and this time
with a more social, democratic character, in the sense
that all social classes could have access to it. Just like
the Grands Boulevards in Paris, the greenery with exot-
ic plants and shadow trees as well as the urban furniture
atractted the population for a social walkway. The impos-
ing width of the avenue gave it a feel of innovation and
development. The modernism was coming and the people
wanted to be a part of it.
The geographical expansion of the city attracts great
wealth, which builds its palaces there. The beauty of the
gardens and buildings, as well as the monumental width
and a modern character attracts the population of Lisbon
to the avenue for their walks where the important thing
was “to see and be seen in”.
The belle époque, understood as a manifestation of the
Golden Age of the urban culture of the contemporary bour-
geoisie, whose traditional paintings refer to Paris in the late
19
th
century, arrives in Lisbon. The mechanisms and be-
haviors of Lisbon’s bourgeois sociability thus produced im-
ages of a Golden Age of social life, whose routes and veins
of organic circulation were the Great Avenues (Fig. 6).
Conclusions
The end of the 19
th
century is marked by the transfor-
mation of cities in the face of a new urbanism generated
by the consequences of the industrial revolution. The so-
ciability spaces are outlined by urban plans in an attempt
to adapt the city to modernity. Cerdá, in Barcelona and,
especially Haussmann, in Paris, propose new urban ar-
rangements to solve the new issues caused by the move-
ment of people, machines and goods.
Relationships and social events evolve and leisure and
recreation appear as a function that the city had to oer.
This task fell to its public spaces that assume a new social
function, in addition to a simple exchange of information.
The streets take on new dimensions to meet the de-
mands of circulation and become wider are more inviting
to social classes until then segregated.
The process to build these spaces generated the in-
crease in the real estate market and expulsion of low and
middle classes from the valued areas of the cities in favor
of the wealthier, nevertheless the use of the promenade by
dierent actors made it democratic.
In both Paris and Lisbon, the great avenues become
elements of sociability, serving as settings for social and
political, religious or simply leisure activities.
Fig. 6. Promenade at Avenida da Liberdade,
beginning of the 20
th
century.
The greenery and the urban furniture made the walk more enjoyable
and inviting to the population
(photo by J. Benoliel, source: [24])
Il. 6. Promenada przy Avenida da Liberdade na początku XX w.
Zieleń i elementy małej miejskiej architektury sprawiły,
że spacer stał się przyjemniejszy i bardziej zachęcający dla ludności
(fot. J. Benoliel, źródło: [24])
equipment, imposed new constraints on road design and
discipline in their use. The rectilinear, regular and wide
layout of public roads provided the ideal of a pleasant city
for urbanism in the 2
nd
half of the 19
th
century [21].
A importância axial no desenvolvimento de Lisboa do
projecto da Avenida da Liberdade e das Avenidas Novas
deve, ainda que sumariamente,ser referenciada no quad-
ro geral do notável crescimento da cidade nos últimos
anos do século XIX, traduzido sobretudo na criação de
numerosos bairros periféricos, uns de iniciativa cama-
rária – entre os quais se salientam o da Estefânia e o de
Campo de Ourique, ambos projectados por Ressano Gar-
cia no início dos anos de 1880
4
[22, p. 14].
It is in this scenario that, in 1879 Frederico Ressa-
no Garcia, the protagonist of Lisbon’s progressive urban
revo lution, trained by the École des Ponts et Chaussées at
Paris, and an admirer of Haussmann’s work, presented the
project for “Grande Avenida do Passeio Público do Ros-
sio: Avenida da Liberdade Plan”, as an integral part of the
Capital improvement plan [7, p. 17].
The avenue should be 90 m wide, 1,000 m long, start-
ing at Praça dos Restauradores and ending at a large circu-
lar square, 200 m in diameter that would be called Praça
Mar quês de Pombal. Crossing two parishes, S. José (to
the south) and Coração de Jesus (to the north). The streets
of Salitre and Manuel Jesus Coelho marked the height of
the border.
Unlike the neo-urbanist reasons for the Paris reform,
faced with the problem of hygiene and riot control, Lis-
bon’s need was for an expansion of the city. The area to
4
The axial importance of the Avenida da Liberdade and Avenidas
Novas project in the development of Lisbon must, even if briey, be ref-
erenced in the general framework of the remarkable growth of the city
in the last years of the 19
th
century, mainly translated into the creation
of numerous peripheral neighborhoods, some of municipal initiative
– among which the Estefânia and Campo de Ourique, both designed by
Ressano Garcia in the early 1880s, stand out (free transl. by D. Gaudiot).
The street as sociability space: the case of the Grand Avenues in Paris and Lisbon in the 19
th
century 57
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The presence of gardens and trees as new landscape
elements made them healthier and inviting. The urban
furniture proposed by Haussmann and repeated in Lisbon,
like benches, newsstands, water-fountains and even pub-
lic toilets attracted the population giving them a service.
The popular socialization could be seen in informal
meetings of dierent social classes, increased with the pro-
liferation of coee shops, cinemas and the valorization of
window displays, marking, in certain aspects, the beginning
of the 20
th
century. The sociability space goes outdoors.
Translated by
Denise Gaudiot
Abstract
The street as sociability space: the case of the Grand Avenues in Paris and Lisbon in the 19
th
century
The industrial revolution, as well as the French revolution in the 18
th
century, marked the period of transition from feudalism to capitalism in
Europe. These two events generated two new social classes: the working class and the bourgeoisie. With the progressive concentration of these
emerging classes in urban centers, to the detriment of rural areas, the movement of people, machines and goods became an essential urban function,
generating new social public spaces.
This article proposes an analysis, based on a literature review, of the streets known as Grands Boulevards, proposed by George Eugène Hauss-
mann for Paris in the middle of the 19
th
century, and their role as a sociability space. The aim of this article is to present similarities between the
Parisian avenues and Portuguese solutions of streets in Lisbon in social and urban-design terms. The repetition of Haussmannian characteristic was
seen in several cities in the world, however in the city of Lisbon it was designed on a much larger scale. The construction of a new avenue, known as
58 Denise Gaudiot, João Pernão, Laura Martins
Avenida da Liberdade, for the growth and beautication of the city was inspired by Haussmann work in Paris and became a place to see and be seen
in. The consumption habits of the new classes within a modern machine city, asked for dierent street shapes and sizes, which were designed for
everyday use in order to organize the city’s urban fabric. Wider, greener and equipped with urban furniture, these representative avenues both in Paris
and Lisbon were more inviting and open to a diversity of social classes and their coexistence, until then segregated at public spaces.
Key words: avenues, street, Hausmmann, sociability, public space
Streszczenie
Ulica jako przestrzeń życia społecznego. Wielkie aleje w XIX-wiecznym Paryżu i Lizbonie
Rewolucja przemysłowa wraz z rewolucją francuską w XVIII w. wyznaczyły granice okresu przejścia od systemu feudalnego do kapitalistyczne-
go w Europie. Obie rewolucje przyczyniły się do powstania dwóch warstw społecznych: klasy robotniczej i burżuazji. Wraz z postępującą koncen-
tracją w centrach miast tych świeżo powstałych klas oraz ubytkiem ludności na wsi, przepływ ludzi, maszyn i towarów stał się jedną z zasadniczych
funkcji miejskich, przyczyniając się do tworzenia nowych przestrzeni publicznych o społecznym charakterze.
W artykule przedstawiono – opartą na studiach bibliogracznych – analizę ulic znanych jako Grands Boulevards, zaprojektowanych przez barona
George’a Eugène’a Haussmanna dla Paryża w połowie XIX w., oraz rozważania na temat ich roli w tworzeniu publicznej przestrzeni społecznej.
Zanalizowano także wzorowaną na nich lizbońską Avenida da Liberdade. Głównym celem pracy było wykazanie podobieństw pomiędzy rozwiąza-
niami paryskimi i tymi zastosowanymi już na znacznie większą skalę w stolicy Portugalii, zarówno w formie urbanistycznej, jak i socjalnej. Nowe
aleje związane były bowiem z rozwojem urbanistycznym i upiększaniem stolic Francji i Portugalii, ale stały się również miejscem, w którym ob-
serwowano i było się widzianym w sensie społecznym. Nowe zwyczaje nowych klas społecznych w nowoczesnym mieście wymagały odmiennych
układów i rozwiązań ulic, projektowanych do codziennego funkcjonowania w uporządkowanej strukturze urbanistycznej. Szersze, pełne zieleni
i wyposażone w elementy małej architektury reprezentacyjne ulice zarówno w Paryżu, jak i w Lizbonie stały się miejscem zapraszającym i otwartym
na współ-egzystencję i łączenie zróżnicowanych klas społecznych, dotychczas często od siebie odizolowanych.
Słowa kluczowe: aleje, ulica, Haussmann, społeczność, przestrzeń publiczna