Filipa Roseta Vaz Monteiro

Abstract: Published literature regarding the urban type avenue is either too general, neglecting thorough examination of case studies, or too particular, focusing solely on idiosyncratic traits. This research focused on the comparative analysis of three iconic case studies: Avenue des Champs-Élysées (Paris), Regent Street (London), and Avenida da Liberdade (Lisbon). The detailed account of why and how the three case-studies were commissioned, conceived and built provides an illustrated sequence of how the avenue was used in the seventeenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The comparative methodology introduced by this thesis can be applied in future research regarding avenues or on any other urban type.

Three original arguments are defended in this thesis: (1) the understanding of an avenue as a tree-lined pathway is replaced by a broader understanding of the avenue framed by Landscape Architecture; (2) the nineteenth-century urban avenue as a type created by enlightened absolute power is replaced by the avenue as a type emerging with economical and political liberalism, and (3) the avenue is presented as an all inclusive, multifunctional, urban space able to become a meaningful public space, symbolising the nation.

Any study related to the urban realm embraces many disciplines; nevertheless, this research has chosen as primary field of research the physical development of urban space and has been framed within Urban and Critical Studies.