The importance of the boulevard for the appearance of the city. The importance of the boulevard for the formation of the urban environment

Several parts of the project (alley, square) seemed less interesting to me. And the theme of the boulevard has become relevant in Moscow by association: demolition of five-story buildings - Haussmanization of Paris - boulevards.
More about Haussmann and the boulevards, but for now a few excerpts from an article by Grigory Revzin.A happy man, however, is Grigory Revzin. He can imagine Moscow without microdistricts and cannot imagine it without boulevards... Photos of the boulevards of Budapest, from the Internet.

Boulevard
Street, square, alley, courtyard, park - this has existed in cities more or less always, since Jericho and Ur. The boulevard is a new European invention; it did not exist either in antiquity or in the Middle Ages. It’s not that the city is such a thing in the structure of which it is difficult to invent something - take, for example, microdistricts with panel housing - but it is difficult to invent something new so that it takes root. It’s easy to imagine Moscow without microdistricts, but it’s hard to imagine without boulevards. The appearance of a new place in the city is evidence; it makes one suspect that some new person has appeared in the city for whom it is intended.
Boulevards arose as a by-product of the arms race - the development of artillery led to the fact that earthen bastions around cities lost their meaning. They were planted with trees (more precisely, they stopped cutting down those that grew there - before that, the roots of the trees were used as a means of strengthening the soil). The name "boulevard" itself comes from the Dutch bolwerc - "bastion", because of the Grand Boulewart bastion opposite the Bastille, which in 1670 was the first to be turned into a boulevard through the efforts of Louis XIV. The atmosphere of Paris during the era of the "Three Musketeers" more or less clarifies the king's plan. The abandoned city walls and ditches were something like a cultural park before the reign of Sergei Kapkov, a place of innocent entertainment for paratroopers and border guards, the king's musketeers and the cardinal's guards, too specific a place in the city to continue to tolerate its presence. However, the place has changed, but the public has not completely - unlike the parks, which were the private property of the aristocrat, the boulevards have become a place for the democratic connection of citizens with nature. Some trace of this difference between the park and the boulevard still remains in the opposition of the high poetry of gardens and boulevard literature, although it seems to have almost been erased.

True, bastions are not the only source of origin of the boulevard. There was another, aristocratic one. Marie de Medici, the second wife of Henry IV, was, according to Heinrich Mann, a rather melancholic person, not very happy with her loving husband. From Florence she brought her favorite pastime - carriage rides along the Corso along the Arno River. Thus, along the Seine near the Tuileries, the Queen's Alley (Cours la Reine) appeared in 1616. The innovation was picked up in Madrid (Prado), in Rome (where the Corso led to the Forum, around which it was customary to drive around, looking at the ruins) and in London (Pall Mall, where in the end there were no trees left).

But despite all the differences in the social status of the boulevard’s parents, they had one thing in common. They were not city dwellers. The alley is not an urban invention; the cypress-lined country roads that so delight us in Tuscany marked the paths to aristocratic estates (they provided pleasant shade on an Italian afternoon, and it was the responsibility of the tenants to plant cypress trees). Boulevards in place of walls and ramparts marked the border of the city, the place where fields and forests began. Both were an intrusion into the fabric of the city by an extraneous, alien morphology - the park.

This was not a 19th century park with its cult of nature and freedom, it was a scientific park of classical Europe. Osip Mandelstam accurately conveyed that specific understanding of nature, which is captured in European classical parks: “Nature is the same Rome and is reflected in it. // We see images of its civil power // In the transparent air, like in a blue circus, // At the forum fields and in the colonnade of groves."

This is the ideal world of ancient poetry and mythology, inhabited by nymphs and satyrs, philosophers and poets, and in this park antiquity there was nothing more banal than the juxtaposition of a column and a tree. The parks with their green theaters, glades - halls, groves - temples were a semblance of Roman forums, living proof of the idea of ​​the unity of architecture and nature, important for classical aesthetics.

We are most interested in colonnades - groves. In Roman antiquity there was one unique urban planning technique - a columned street, when a marble colonnade was placed along the entire length of the street, and behind it there could be any private facades. As a rule, the houses themselves, made of brick, were not preserved - only rows of columns remained, which still amaze us today in Roman Africa and Asia, and in the 17th century they also amazed us in Europe. The alleys were analogues of these streets, and the trees represented the colonnades of antiquity.

The difference between the boulevard and the corso was that democratic elements walked along the boulevard, while aristocratic figures rode in carriages along the corso. The Great French Revolution mixed up the classes, and thus the French Boulevard arose.

It had separate traffic lanes for carriages and pedestrians, their order could change - as in Moscow, where pedestrians move in the center and transport along the edges (Moscow boulevards are classic, they arose on the site of city walls), or as on some boulevards in Paris, where transport is in the center (it's basically an alley). But the main thing is not the order, but what they were separated by - trees.

This created a specific status for the boulevard as a place somewhat alien to the city. The 19th century discovered the figure of the flâneur - Balzac, Gogol, Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe devoted diagnostic essays to the flâneur. It has its own, if not phenomenology, then mythology, explored in detail by Mikhail Yampolsky in the fascinating book “The Observer. Essays on the History of Vision.” The flâneur was something sharply new, a phenomenon that had never been encountered before and required legitimation. Charles de Sainte-Beuve wrote that flâneur is “something directly opposite to idleness,” Balzac uses the formula “gastronomy for the eye,” Baudelaire simply praised the flâneur. It is customary among urbanists to pay attention to this figure, noting here the phenomenon of purely urban behavior.

With all the development of this topic, I will add on my own that another name for this figure, lost over time, is boulevardier. Now it seems that it remains only in the name of a classic cocktail with a deep, slightly sweet taste of loneliness. Initially, the flâneur is a type of observer walking along the boulevard, and its novelty, in fact, lies not in the type of behavior, but in its object. He walks around the city in the same way as he walked through the park, observing only not the proportions of the golden ratio in plants, as Goethe did, not those sublime metaphors that inspired Mandelstam, but city life.

A city, if it is an old city, medieval in origin, is an attention-hungry institution; it constantly examines you, offers itself, draws you into doors, shops, and shop windows. I want to distance myself from it a little, I think that traditional masks, veils or their modern analogue, dark glasses, protect precisely from this slight indecency - greedy staring. The boulevard creates a spatial figure of defamiliarization - it is a street along which you walk inside and at the same time away from the city. You view the city as if from the park, from behind the trees, from the heights of the ancient tradition of colonnades that gave birth to them.

The word “boulevard” came into Russian presumably from the French language. There is also information about the German origin of the word. In the modern understanding, the meaning of the word “boulevard” is an alley for walking. Along its edges there are green spaces.

Historical description of the boulevard

The first boulevards appeared in the Middle Ages in Europe. They had nothing in common with modern boulevards. What was a "boulevard" in the Middle Ages? These were fortifications designed to defend the city. The boulevards were lines of earthworks. Some agreed with each other. Some were located separately. Partially, the boulevards were combined with the general system of fortifying the city. Sometimes guns for defense were located in the boulevards. Subsequently, the meaning of the word “boulevard” was confused with an earthen rampart. Boulevards were also located along the sea line.

Modern boulevard

Gradually, with the advent of more peaceful times, the relevance of boulevards as defensive structures began to decline. Boulevards from the 18th-19th centuries. began to be used for walking. The city authorities began to decorate them on both sides with trees, level them and make them suitable for walking. What is the boulevard now? This is a wide pedestrian area, limited by green spaces and decorated with lawns, flower beds, monuments and sculptural compositions. The boulevard is often decorated with fountains and equipped with benches.

The importance of the boulevard for the formation of the urban environment

Boulevards play an important role in solving architectural, planning and environmental issues. With the rapid development of cities, there is a need to expand the road network. As the number of cars increases, air pollution in large cities increases. Placing boulevard networks along roads with a wide strip of green spaces can reduce the adverse impact of the urban environment on humans.

In the modern planning of the urban environment, an important point has become the windward placement of the boulevard in relation to large automobile hubs. Here it is advisable to plant trees with high and dense crowns in several rows on both sides.

The importance of the boulevard for the appearance of the city

The definition of the word "boulevard" implies their use in the recreational sphere. When forming an urban plan, an important role is played by the intensity of pedestrian flow and the degree of population of the area where it is located. What is a boulevard for a city dweller? The boulevards are used by local residents for walks and leisure activities. Green spaces perform a protective function against harmful emissions into the atmosphere. The layout of the boulevard involves combining shady areas with more illuminated areas. In southern cities, benches are located mainly in the shady part of the boulevard; in northern cities, the opposite is true. Boulevards are often decorated with compositions of flower beds and small architectural forms. Due to this, a special flavor of the urban environment is achieved.

What is the difference between a boulevard and an avenue?

The prospect is a wide, long street, lined with trees on both sides, intended for vehicle traffic. The prospectus has several main features:

• the avenue must be through (despite the presence of pedestrian zones, it must be possible to drive from one end of the avenue to the other without interrupting the route);
• the avenue is oriented towards public transport;
• the beginning and end of the avenue should be transport interchanges.

The avenue may have pedestrian zones. But basically, an avenue refers to the largest streets in the city intended for vehicle traffic. In some cities, avenues are partially or completely pedestrian, but this is the exception rather than the rule. The main difference between a boulevard and an avenue is its purpose and size. The avenue is often longer and wider than the boulevard and is oriented towards transport.

What is a boulevard for the city as a whole? This is a place of relaxation and walks for residents. This is the decoration of the city. The famous Boulevard Ring of Moscow consists of ten boulevards with a total length of nine kilometers. The boulevard ring is located on the site of the former fortifications of the White City. They were demolished in the 18th century. In the squares where the boulevards have access, and at the intersections with major streets, monuments to famous people of Russia are erected.

A very beautiful boulevard named after V.I. Lenin and the Uzbek Garden were built in Tashkent in the 70s. XX century The boulevard consists of several lanes for pedestrian traffic and stripes with green areas. It is 110 meters wide. The length of the boulevard is about half a kilometer. In the center is the famous Uzbek garden. It has a regular layout. Different types of fruit trees were used in its design. During the flowering period, the boulevard is enveloped in the aroma of flowers. The garden is also decorated with small ponds and sculptural compositions.

An interesting boulevard was built in Baku. It is called Primorsky and consists of two terraces located at different levels. This boulevard is interesting because the terraces are located on the mainland and on an artificial embankment. The boulevard itself is divided by artificial reservoirs. Its length is about 3 km. It is decorated with various compositions of flower beds, lawns and small architectural forms.

Thus, we can say that the boulevard is a necessary element in the formation of the urban environment. They can be combined with park areas. They give the city a unique look and flavor.

Moscow's boulevards are numerous and varied. The word boulevard translated from French and German means a fortified earthen rampart. Later, this word began to designate alleys surrounded by green spaces that appeared on the site of city protective ramparts or along the sea coast, rivers intended for walking. The very first boulevards appeared in Paris after the city grew and the authorities demolished the city walls that were on its territory.

The boulevards of Moscow that form the Boulevard Ring are a sequence of streets located in the Central Administrative District of the city. The boulevard ring consists of ten boulevards, stretching for a total of more than 9 kilometers. The boulevard ring of Moscow is not closed, but is limited in the south by the Moscow River.

When Moscow grew significantly in the 18th century, the protective wall of the White City was dismantled, and the first Moscow boulevards were laid where it ran. Tverskoy Boulevard was the first to appear in 1796, and the ring was finally formed after 1812. In 1887, a horse-drawn tram was launched along the Boulevard Ring, which lasted until 1911, when it was replaced by a tram.

Throughout its existence, the Boulevard Ring has undergone various changes and improvements. For the 800th anniversary of Moscow in 1947, the mesh fence of the boulevards was replaced with a cast-iron barrier, more comfortable ones were installed instead of the old benches, and more than 4 thousand trees and 13 thousand shrubs were planted. The reconstruction project of the Boulevard Ring was led by V.I. Dolganov. In 1878, the boulevard ring was officially declared a monument of landscape art.

The oldest boulevard in Moscow is Tverskoy, but it is also the longest of all the streets that make up the Boulevard Ring - it stretches 857 meters. The widest of these boulevards is Strastnoy (123 meters), the shortest is Sretensky (214 meters), and the youngest is Pokrovsky Boulevard, which appeared in Moscow in 1891.

If you walk along these ancient boulevards of Moscow, you can see a lot of interesting things that will go unnoticed during a regular sightseeing tour. An interesting fact is that in the old days, Tverskoy Boulevard was a favorite walking place for aristocrats, and people of the common class were forbidden to walk here. To this day, on Tverskoy Boulevard in Moscow, mansions of the 19th century have been preserved, in which outstanding personalities of a bygone era lived; Pushkin, Griboedov, Herzen visited them. Ogarev, it was on this boulevard that literary institutions were located, following the example of which Bulgakov described MASSOLIT in the novel “The Master and Margarita”. Here are the mansions of Professor Sklifosovsky and actress Ermolova.

No less interesting is the history and architecture of another Moscow boulevard - Gogolevsky. It was originally called Prechistensky, starts from the Kropotkinskaya metro station and ends at the Gorky monument. On this street, too, almost every building is an architectural monument, preserving the memory of many famous figures of the past. For example, in the building of the current Chess Club there was once a center of Moscow musical life; here you could meet Chaliapin, Rachmaninov, Glazunov. Gogolevsky Boulevard is called not only because of the monument to the writer; Nikolai Vasilyevich lived and worked on this street in Moscow, and here he burned the second volume of Dead Souls, already prepared for publication. A wonderful place to relax is Strastnoy Boulevard, bright and spacious, favored by artists and photographers.

These are just three of the most famous boulevards included in the Moscow Boulevard Ring, the other seven are no less interesting. During the 20th century, new boulevards appeared in Moscow, located outside the ring - there are more than twenty of them. Of course, they are less interesting for tourists, you can rarely see an interesting monument on them, but they also play an important and irreplaceable role in the life of today's Moscow, modern life is in full swing on them, children run along the alleys, adults are in a hurry on business, pensioners leisurely stroll.

BOULEVARD

BOULEVARD

(French boulevard, from German Bollwerk). An alley along the street, strewn with sand and lined with trees on both sides, intended for walking.

Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. - Chudinov A.N., 1910 .

BOULEVARD

a promenade alley running in the middle of a city street.

A complete dictionary of foreign words that have come into use in the Russian language. - Popov M., 1907 .

BOULEVARD

a wide but not high embankment lined with trees, running along the street and serving for walking.

Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. - Pavlenkov F., 1907 .

BOULEVARD

French boulevard, from it. Bollwerk. A smooth strip of land strewn with sand and lined with trees on both sides.

Explanation of 25,000 foreign words that have come into use in the Russian language, with the meaning of their roots. - Mikhelson A.D., 1865 .

Boulevard

(fr. boulevard, original city ​​rampart bollwerk) alley in the middle of the street, wide street lined with trees, original. - on the site of the former ramparts.

New dictionary of foreign words. - by EdwART,, 2009 .

Boulevard

boulevard, m. [fr. boulevard]. Wide alley in the city. || City Garden (region).

Large dictionary of foreign words. - Publishing House "IDDK", 2007 .

Boulevard

A, m. (fr. boulevard original city ​​rampart German Bollwerk shaft, bastion).
A wide alley on a city street, usually in the middle of it, as well as the street itself.
Tabloid -
1) relating to boulevard, boulevards;
2) designed for philistine, middle-class tastes, vulgar (usually about works of literature).
Boulevard (contempt) -
1) anti-artistic works designed for philistine, bourgeois tastes;
2) content, plot, characteristic of such works.
|| Wed. Avenue, esplanade.

Explanatory dictionary of foreign words by L. P. Krysin. - M: Russian language, 1998 .

See what "BOULEVARD" is in other dictionaries:

On Lenin Avenue in Yaroslavl Boulevard (French boulevard ... Wikipedia

Boulevard- (Yaroslavl, Russia) Hotel category: Address: Svobody Street 12a, Yaroslavl, Russia ... Hotel catalog

Alley, esplanade, boulevard, street, boulevard Dictionary of Russian synonyms. boulevard noun, number of synonyms: 7 alley (5) ... Dictionary of synonyms

Young talents. Jarg. homo. Joking. A square near the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, a meeting place for homosexuals. Kz., 41. Shkolny Boulevard. Jarg. school Joking. School corridor. Maksimov, 48. Polish the boulevards. Razg. Outdated Disapproved Have a good time walking... Large dictionary of Russian sayings

boulevard- a, m. boulevard m. German 1. Alley, a road for walking, running along a rampart or along a city street (initially in Paris, and from the end of the century in other cities). Sl. 18. We went for a walk on the boulevard. Demidov Journal. 37. Walk straight through the city, .. and... ... Historical Dictionary of Gallicisms of the Russian Language

boulevard- A wide green strip along the street, including one or several alleys of paths for pedestrians [Terminological dictionary of construction in 12 languages ​​(VNIIIS Gosstroy USSR)] boulevard Green public area along highways ... Technical Translator's Guide

- (French boulevard) a wide tree-lined alley along a street, seashore, etc. The creation of a network of boulevards plays a significant role in the landscaping of cities... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

BOULEVARD, boulevard, man. (French boulevard). Wide alley in the city. || City Garden (region). Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

BOULEVARD, ah, husband. A wide alley in the middle of a city street or along the embankment. Walk along the boulevard. Primorsky b. | adj. boulevard, oh, oh. Ozhegov's explanatory dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

- - a wide alley in the middle of a city street or along the embankment. EdwART. Dictionary of automotive jargon, 2009 ... Automobile dictionary

Books

• Pitersky Boulevard 33-2015, Editorial office of the newspaper Pitersky Boulevard. Full color entertaining weekly. The newspaper contains entertainment materials, crosswords, jokes, photographs of naked girls, many competitions, an erotic horoscope.…