BOULEVARD

broad landscaped avenue typically permitting several lanes of vehicular traffic as well as pedestrian walkways. The earliest boulevards were built in the ancient Middle East, especially at Antioch. Commonly a major axis in a city, the boulevard permits long picturesque views, the foliage along the boulevard minimizing peripheral visual distraction. Straight and geometrically precise boulevards were a hallmark of the design principles taught at the cole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, while winding avenues are more common to the naturalistic schools of city planning that have come into being since the latter part of the 19th century. Formal, geometric, curving boulevards are found at the site of many former fortifications such as Vienna and Prague. In other cases, they have been deliberately included in a plan that has been imposed on an area, for example, the streets leading into the Place Charles de Gaulle (formerly Place d'toile) in Paris and the broad avenues of Washington, D.C. In Italy, a wide avenue with landscaped edges is called a corso or largo.