Plac Maxa Borna, Wrocław

Plac Maxa Borna is the riverside square in Nadodrze named for Max Born, the German physicist and Nobel laureate. The Odra curls around its western and southern edges, giving this open patch of central Wrocław an unexpectedly watery boundary. Notice the granite paving under the open space and the lawns breaking it up.

This was not always a square. Until the late eighteenth century, the site was gardens and green ground; from 1772 it became part of the Schiesswerder-Schanze fortifications. Once the defences came down after 1807, substantial salt warehouses stood here until 1870.

Later, four-storey rental houses filled the area. The large public-service building beside the square dates from about 1936. It survived the 1945 siege, while much of the neighbouring development closer to Mieszczański Bridge was devastated and subsequently cleared away.

The resulting space became Dąbrowszczaków Square in 1956, then received Max Born’s name on the second of January 1992. The surviving complex now belongs to the University of Wrocław, serving physics and geology institutes. Its 1996 extension, marked by a glass rotunda, contains scientific libraries, a large lecture hall and a student canteen.