 Avenue Foch seen from the Arc de Triomphe | |
  Shown within Paris | |
| Length | 1,300 m (4,300 ft) |
|---|---|
| Width | 120 m (390 ft) in the section surrounded by gardens; 40 m elsewhere |
| Arrondissement | 16th |
| Quarter | Chaillot, Porte Dauphine |
| Coordinates | 48°52′25″N2°17′19″E / 48.87361°N 2.28861°E /48.87361; 2.28861 |
| From | Place Charles de Gaulle |
| To | Boulevard Lannes and Place du Maréchal de Lattre de Tassigny |
| Construction | |
| Completion | 31 March 1854 |
| Denomination | 29 March 1929 |
TheAvenue Foch (French pronunciation:[avnyfɔʃ]) is an avenue in the16th arrondissement of Paris,France, named afterWorld War I MarshalFerdinand Foch in 1929. It was previously known as theAvenue du Bois de Boulogne. It is one of the most prestigious streets in Paris, as well as one of the most expensive addresses in the world, home to many grand city palaces, including ones belonging to theOnassis andRothschild families. The Rothschilds once owned numbers 19–21.
The avenue runs from theArc de Triomphe southwest to thePorte Dauphine at the edge of theBois de Boulogne city park. It is the widest avenue in Paris, lined with chestnut trees along its full length.
The avenue was constructed during the reign of EmperorNapoleon III, as part of the grand plan for the reconstruction of Paris conducted by Napoleon's prefect of the Seine,Baron Haussmann. It was designed to connect thePlace de l'Étoile with another important part of Haussmann's plan, theBois de Boulogne, the new public park on the west end of the city. The original plan, byJacques Hittorff, who had designed thePlace de la Concorde decades earlier, called for an avenue forty metres wide between the modern Avenue Victor Hugo and the modernAvenue de la Grande Armée. Haussmann scrapped this plan and instead called for an avenue at least one hundred metres wide, wider than theChamps-Élysées between theArc de Triomphe and the new Bois de Boulogne. Its purpose was to provide an impressive grand approach for fashionable Parisians to promenade from the centre of the city to the park in their carriages, to see and be seen. It was to be called the Avenue de l'Impératrice ("Avenue of the Empress"), for theEmpress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III.
The avenue was built byJean-Charles Adolphe Alphand, the chief engineer of the Service of Promenades and Plantations of Paris, who also designed the Bois de Boulogne,Bois de Vincennes,Parc Monceau,Parc des Buttes Chaumont, in addition to other parks and squares built by Napoleon III. The iron fences and lamps were designed by the architectGabriel Davioud, who designed all the distinctive ornamental park architecture of Paris during the period, from fountains and temples to gates and fences. The final design consisted of a central avenue 120 metres wide and 1,300 metres long, flanked by sidewalks for pedestrians, riding paths for horsemen, in addition to crisscrossing alleys, shaded by rows of chestnut trees and decorated along its full length by ornamental lawns and gardens with exotic flowers and plants. It was, in fact, an extension of the Bois de Boulogne into the city, connecting directly with the avenues and paths of the park.[1]
It opened in 1854 and was immediately popular with Parisians, although it did not keep its name for long. After the downfall of Napoleon III in 1870 and the establishment of theThird Republic, the name was changed from the Avenue de l'Impératrice to the Avenue du Général-Uhrich (afterJean-Jacques Uhrich), then again in 1875 to the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne. It was changed again in 1929 to the Avenue Foch, after the hero of theFirst World War, who died in that year.
During theSecond World War, the street was nicknamedAvenue Boche by the Parisians ("Boche" being a slang word for "German").[2] The local headquarters of theGestapo were located for a time at number 72; the office of Section IV B4 of the Gestapo, theJuden Referat, which was responsible for the arrest and deportation of French Jews to the concentration camps, had its office at 31 bis Avenue Foch.[3] British agentPeter Churchill was tortured on the fifth floor ofnumber 84. He survived the war.[4]
The Gardens of the Avenue Foch occupy a space of 6.62 hectares, within the avenue's dimensions (1,200 metres long and 140 metres wide). In addition to the 4,000 trees that line the avenue, the garden was originally planted with 2,400 different species of trees and plants, making it, as Alphand wrote, "a kind of arboretum". Many of the original trees can still be found in the gardens, including achestnut tree from India, 4.7 metres in circumference, anelm tree fromSiberia, 3.8 metres in circumference, along with a giantCatalpa tree, 3.5 metres in circumference, all three dating from 1852.[5]
The gardens contain a monument toAdolphe Alphand, designed by architectJules Formigé, with sculpture byJules Dalou. The monument was dedicated on 14 December 1899, eight years after Alphand's death.
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