To combine the unity of a central plan with the direction a church needs, plan the space as an oval, set across the axis to widen the view of the altar, or along it to lead the eye towards it.
Rules · Plans · Optics · Cities
One axis from the house to the horizon
Organise the whole garden on one axis from the centre of the house to the horizon; lay out the parts symmetrically about it, and use water, slopes and hidden changes of level so that the view along it reveals the garden by stages.
At Vaux-le-Vicomte, Le Nôtre ran the axis from the house over the parterres and pools to a canal nearly a kilometre long laid across it, in a hollow that cannot be seen from the house. The view from the windows seems continuous, but the walker discovers the canal only on reaching its edge and must go round it to climb to the statue of Hercules beyond. The garden is designed in perspective: distances are compressed and stretched by the placing of pools and changes of level, so that the visitor’s idea of the garden changes as he walks.
At Versailles the axis is the garden’s spine and the king’s: from the palace across the water parterre, down the Latona stairs, along the Tapis Vert to the Apollo fountain and on along the Grand Canal (1,670 m) to the horizon. Avenues radiating from points on it, the pattes d’oie, spread the geometry into the forest and the town.
Related rules
Divide the inside of a dome into coffers that shrink in step with the meridians as they rise, so that their perspective deepens the dome and draws the eye to the light of the lantern.
Let the wall of a façade curve in plan (concave, convex, concave) so that the front answers the street, the light and the space within, and the order bends with it.
Make the stair of a palace a processional space: one broad flight rising to a landing, then turning back in two flights either side to arrive at the principal floor beneath a single great vault.
Lay the parterres where they are seen from above, from the windows of the house or from a raised terrace, since their patterns are lost to someone standing among them; keep everything near them low.
Approach the house by a wide avenue of double or quadruple rows of trees; behind it lay the parterres of embroidery, then parterres of grass, then the groves with their walks and fountains, and close the walks with perspectives that deceive the eye.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “One axis from the house to the horizon”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/le-notre-grand-axis. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.