The Champs Elysées of Zaragoza: an Urban Recreation Site for Nineteenth-Century Society

Abstract

In this text we study the Champs Elysées in Zaragoza, which was a public pleasure ground established in 1868 in the paseo de Torrero (present day paseo de Sagasta), near the bridge over the river Huerva, modelled on those installed in other European cities in that century. It was conceived as a space for public amusement and conviviality, and offered a wide variety of shows and forms of entertainment that were fashionable at that moment: concerts, plays, zarzuelas, dances and walking areas. It was also an indispensable element in the construction process of urban modernity in this city. It disappeared at the end of the nineteenth century, although the land was used for other purposes until the Thirties when the Elysées building (paseo de Sagasta, nos. 2 and 4, corner of Gran Vía, nos. 1 and 3) was built.