This is one of the most important squares in Bucharest, with a shape influenced by Haussmann’s model of grand intersections. At the end of the 15th century, this was located at the edge of the city, but today it often plays the role of Bucharest’s central square, and, in recent history, it has been the scene of many great public demonstrations. This is where the first school of higher studies in Wallachia originally stood, the Saint Sava Academy, upon which the University of Bucharest was later built in the mid-19th century. The square holds four statues of important figures of Romanian history and there are plans for remaking one other statue, which had been destroyed at the beginning of the Communist period.