"The glass pyramid of the Louvre, La Défense, even the quaint “Monument to the Rights of Man” are known to sit within the French President François Mitterrand’s enigmatic building obsession. But Cergy-Pointoise’s “Axe Majeur” is both the largest and never cited work developed under Mitterrand’s reign. So why is it so unknown ?"
Philip Copens
" ... In modern France, President François Mitterrand, nicknamed “the Sphinx”, may – or perhaps should – go down as a man who tried to accomplish as much. His modifications of Paris, specifically with the pyramid of the Louvre and the extension of Paris’ main axis towards La Défense, have captured the imagination of many, including Dan Brown and Robert Bauval, the latter who has seen this “Great Work” as a series of subtle modifications with a hidden, esoteric meaning, in line with sacred Egyptian town planning and stellar alignments. Some authors have also drawn attention to the “Monument to the Rights of Man and the Citizen”, a small building in the shadow of the Eiffel tower, modelled on an Egyptian funerary temple. It is aligned to the summer solstice, when the sun at noon penetrates a shaft between its two columns. It is said that Mitterrand sometimes came here during the night, apparently to think, meditate or reflect. Few, however, have noticed one of the grandest, most enigmatic and impressive creations that Mitterrand’s regime accomplished : the “Axe Majeur” in Cergy-Pontoise. As the name indicates, this is a veritable “major axis”, in a town – La Pontoise – where one of the most infamous alchemists of all times, Nicolas Flamel, was born. As to Cergy : contrary to other new towns that derive their names from existing villages or geographical features, there was no place named Cergy. The story goes that someone observed that paths in the upper part of the Axe Majeur, which was already integrated in the general lay out of the project, looked like the letter Y, and proposed to name the new town Cergy, the inversion of "Y Grec" – the Greek Y – in French. The letter Y was one of the favourite symbols of the Pythagorians, indicating that the path of anyone’s life divided into the two paths of vice and virtue. ... "
17 Jan 2008
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