Saxon Axis

[1][2] The idea was first proposed by August II of Poland, who intended to build a large Royal palace surrounded by a French-style garden.

The plan was loosely based on the baroque design of the Palace of Versailles and was to cover a large part of what is now the city of Warsaw.

The main concept, which gave the name to the modern part of the city, assumed the construction of the Saxon Palace, with gardens extending to the both sides along a single axis running exactly through its middle.

Between 1713 and 1726 the king bought 28 parcels of land in the area and invited Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann and Johann Christoph Naumann to design the urban plan.

In recent times also the Warsaw University Library at the Vistula below the river escarpment was added to the list of buildings with main entrances along the axis, and a large golden tablet was placed in the pavement in front of it marking the line running through the city centre.