The first decorative fountain in the United States was dedicated in Philadelphia in 1809. Early American fountains were used to distribute clean drinking water, had little ornamentation, and copied European styles.
In the 20th century, American fountains ceased to distribute drinking water; they became purely decorative, and were designed to honor events or individuals, as works of urban sculpture or to imitate nature.
A notable, albeit widely unknown exception (even locally) is the Tyler Davidson Fountain in the city centre of Cincinnati, which has never ceased maintenance of its filtration and treatment accessories that are housed in the four waterspout figures on the structures perimeter.[1] These waterspouts initially provided a very reliable and trustworthy source of potable water to the urban workforce, and though demand has lessened, the local Water Works continues its upkeep, perhaps informed by the fountain's allegorical design highlighting water as no less fickle than fundamental.
In the late 20th century, the musical fountain, where the dance of water is controlled by a computer and is accompanied by lights and music, became a form of public entertainment in Las Vegas and other American cities.
Philadelphia built the first citywide water system in the United States, which began operation in January 1801. Underground aqueducts carried drinking water from the Schuylkill River, and twin steam pumps propelled it into a water tower at Centre Square, now the site of Philadelphia City Hall. Scottish-born architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe designed the system along with the Greek Revival pumping house/water tower.[2] Centre Square was converted from a meadow into a public park, and an ornamental fountain was added, 1808–1809. Sculptor William Rush carved a wooden statue, Allegory of the Schuylkill River (better known as Water Nymph with Bittern), to adorn the Centre Square fountain.[3]
The first monumental fountains in the United States were built to mark the termini of aqueducts bringing fresh drinking water into New York City. A cholera epidemic in 1832 and the disastrous Great Fire of New York, in 1835, persuaded the government of New York City to build the Croton aqueduct to bring abundant fresh water into the city. The Croton Dam, aqueduct, and reservoir were finished in 1841, bringing water 40 miles from the Croton River to New York City. In commemoration, the Croton Fountain in City Hall Park, was turned on on October 14, 1842, and jetted water 50 feet into the air.[4] A second fountain in Union Square was also connected to the system.
The first fountains were very simple, without sculpture, and simply spouted water up into the air. They no longer exist, though vestiges of the original water system remain.[5]
In 1848, Boston completed its own new water system, an aqueduct from Lake Cochituate20 miles (32km) to the Boston Common, where the first fountain was located. A parade and festival were held to mark the fountain's opening on October 25, 1848. The ceremony included schoolchildren singing an ode written by American poet James Russell Lowell for the event. The ode began:
"My name is Water: I have sped through strange dark ways untried before, By pure desire of friendship led, Cochituate's Ambassador: He sends four gifts by me, Long life, health, peace, and purity."[6]
In contrast to the first American fountains, which were simple and functional, in the 1850s, more decorative fountains were constructed as part of a nationwide effort to beautify American cities by building parks, squares, and fountains inspired by European models.
For example, the Bethesda Fountain was created to adorn New York City's new Central Park, which project had been begun in 1858 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, to create a vast natural landscape in the heart of the city. In the middle of the park was one formal element: a mall adorned with elm trees and a terrace with views over a lake. In 1863, the park commissioners decided to build a monumental fountain for the central basin in the middle of the mall. The sculptor was a little-known American artist, Emma Stebbins, whose brother was the head of the New York Stock Exchange and President of the Board of Commissioners, who lobbied on her behalf. Her fountain was based on the biblical verse from the Gospel of Saint John, in which an angel touched, or "troubled", the waters of the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem, giving it healing powers. She wrote about the fountain: "We have no less healing, comfort and purification freely sent to us through the blessed gift of pure, wholesome water, which to all the countless homes of this great city comes like an angel visitant."[7] It was criticized by some writers when it was opened in 1873: the New York Times called it "a feebly-pretty idealess thing",[8] but gradually the fountain became a popular favorite, featured in many films and in recent times in Tony Kushner's play Angels in America.[9]
1900-2000
Fountains built in the United States between 1900 and 1950 mostly followed European models and classical styles. For example:
The Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park, Chicago was one of the first American fountains to use powerful modern pumps to shoot water as high as 150 feet (46 meters) into the air.
After World War II, fountains in the United States became more varied in form. Some, like the Vaillancourt Fountain in San Francisco (1971), were pure works of sculpture. The modernist French-Canadian Armand Vaillancourt built his monumental fountain at Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco in a cubist style, though it was intended as a political statement - the official title is "Quebec Libre!", and the artist was arrested at the time of the opening for painting political slogans on his own fountain.
Other fountains, like the Frankin Roosevelt Memorial Waterfall (1997), by architect Lawrence Halprin, were designed as landscapes to illustrate themes. This fountain is part of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington D.C., which has four outdoor "rooms" illustrating FDR's presidency. Each "room" contains a cascade or waterfall; the cascade in the third room illustrates the turbulence of the years of the World War II. Halprin wrote at an early stage of the design; "the whole environment of the memorial becomes sculpture: to touch, feel, hear and contact - with all the senses."[10]
One of the most unusual modern American fountains is the Civil Rights Memorial (1989) at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, designed by Maya Lin, the designer of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. The Civil Rights Memorial fountain features a low elliptical black granite table, with a thin surface of water flowing over the surface, over the inscribed names of civil rights leaders who died, illustrating the quotation from Martin Luther King Jr.: "...Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Visitors are invited to touch the names through the water. "The water is as slow as I could get it," Lin wrote. "It remains very still until you touch it. Your hand carves ripples, which transform and alter the piece, just as reading the words completes the piece."[11]
Tallest fountain in the United States, and second-tallest in the world. Located on the opposite side of the Mississippi River from the Gateway Arch, its jet can shoot up 630ft (190m), the same height as the arch.
The fountain was created for "Harbor Hill," the Clarence Mackay estate in Roslyn, New York. Four larger-than-life equestrian figures represent great rivers: "The Rhine," "The Seine," "The Volga," and "The Mississippi." It was disassembled, transported, and installed in Kansas City in 1960.
"The Genius of Water" The fountain was designed by August von Kreling in the 1840s for King Ludwig of Bavaria, but never built. It was cast in Germany in 1870, and shipped to the United States.[14]
Marilyn Symmes (editor), Fountains-Splash and Spectacle- Water and Design from the Renaissance to the Present. Thames and Hudson, in cooperation with the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. (1998).
↑ Ric Burns and James Sanders, New York, an Illustrated History, Alfred Knopf, New York, 1999, pg. 78-79.
↑ Marilyn Symmes with Maria Ann Conelli, "Fountains as Refreshment", in the collection Fountains- Splash and Spectacle, Water and Design from the Renaissance to the Present. Thames and Hudson, London, 1998.
↑ Quoted by Marilynn Symmes and Maria Ann Conelli in Fountains, Splash and Spectacle. Pg. 45.
↑ Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein, American Women Sculptors: A History of Women Working in Three Dimensions, Chicago, 1990, pg. 63-66. Cited in "The Bethesda Fountain in New York City", article by Andrew Scott Dolkart in Fountains- Splash and Spectacle, Water and Design from the Renaissance to the Present, by Marilynn Symmes.
↑ "The Bethesda Fountain", The New York Times, June 1, 1873.
↑ Tony Kushner - Angels in America part two, Perestroika, New York, 1994, pp. 143-146. Cited by Andrew Scott Dolkart in Fountains - Splash and Spectacle.
A fountain, from the Latin "fons", meaning source or spring, is a decorative reservoir used for discharging water. It is also a structure that jets water into the air for a decorative or dramatic effect.
The Croton Aqueduct or Old Croton Aqueduct was a large and complex water distribution system constructed for New York City between 1837 and 1842. The great aqueducts, which were among the first in the United States, carried water by gravity 41 miles (66 km) from the Croton River in Westchester County to reservoirs in Manhattan. It was built because local water resources had become polluted and inadequate for the growing population of the city. Although the aqueduct was largely superseded by the New Croton Aqueduct, which was built in 1890, the Old Croton Aqueduct remained in service until 1955.
Bethesda Terrace and Fountain are two architectural features overlooking the southern shore of the Lake in New York City's Central Park. The fountain, with its Angel of the Waters statue, is located in the center of the terrace.
Emma Stebbins was an American sculptor and the first woman to receive a public art commission from New York City. She is best known for her work Angel of the Waters (1873), the centerpiece of the Bethesda Fountain, located on the Bethesda Terrace in Central Park, New York.
The Croton River is a river in southern New York with three principal tributaries: the West Branch, Middle Branch, and East Branch. Their waters, all part of the New York City water supply system, join downstream from the Croton Falls Reservoir. Together, their waters and the reservoirs linked to them represent the northern half of the New York City water system's Croton Watershed.
The fountain in the Piazza Colonna is a fountain in Rome, Italy, designed by the architect Giacomo Della Porta and constructed by the Fiesole sculptor Rocco Rossi between 1575 and 1577.
Lake Cochituate is a body of water in Natick, Wayland, and Framingham, Massachusetts, United States. Originally a reservoir serving Boston, it no longer serves that function, and is now a local recreational resource and home to Cochituate State Park.
The Bartholdi Fountain is a monumental public fountain, designed by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who later created the Statue of Liberty. The fountain was originally made for the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is now located at the corner of Independence Avenue and First Street, SW, in the United States Botanic Garden, on the grounds of the United States Capitol, in Washington D.C.
The Fontana delle Tartarughe is a fountain of the late Italian Renaissance, located in Piazza Mattei, in the Sant'Angelo district of Rome, Italy. It was built between 1580 and 1588 by the architect Giacomo della Porta and the sculptor Taddeo Landini. The bronze turtles around the upper basin, usually attributed either to Gian Lorenzo Bernini or Andrea Sacchi, were added in either 1658 or 1659 when the fountain was restored.
The Fontana dell'Acqua Felice, also called the Fountain of Moses, is a monumental fountain located in the Quirinale District of Rome, Italy. It marked the terminus of the Acqua Felice aqueduct restored by Pope Sixtus V. It was designed by Domenico Fontana and built in 1585–1588. It is located at the intersection of Largo Santa Susanna and Via Venti Settembre; across and diagonal from the Largo, is the church of Santa Susanna, while across Via Venti Settembre is the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria.
The Fontana dell'Acqua Paola, also known as Il Fontanone or Mostra dell'Acqua Paola, is a monumental fountain located on the Janiculum Hill, near the church of San Pietro in Montorio, in Rome, Italy. It was built in 1612 to mark the end of the Acqua Paola aqueduct, restored by Pope Paul V, and took its name from him. It was the first major fountain on the right bank of the River Tiber.
The Fontaines de la Concorde are two monumental fountains located in the Place de la Concorde in the center of Paris. They were designed by Jacques Ignace Hittorff, and completed in 1840 during the reign of King Louis-Philippe. The south fountain commemorates the maritime commerce and industry of France, and the north fountain commemorates navigation and commerce on the rivers of France.
The Fountains of St. Peter's Square are two fountains in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City, created by Carlo Maderno (1612–1614) and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1667–1677) to ornament the square in front of St. Peter's Basilica. The older fountain, by Maderno, is on the north side of the square.
The Fountain in Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere is a fountain located in the square in front of the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome, Italy. It is believed to be the oldest fountain in Rome, dating back, according to some sources, to the 8th century. The present fountain is the work of Donato Bramante, with later additions by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Carlo Fontana.
The Dupont Circle Fountain, formally known as the Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Dupont Memorial Fountain, is a fountain located in the center of Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. It honors Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont, a prominent American naval officer and member of the Du Pont family. The fountain replaced a statue of Du Pont that was installed in 1884. Designed by Henry Bacon and sculpted by Daniel Chester French, the fountain was dedicated in 1921. Prominent guests at the dedication ceremony included First Lady Florence Harding, Secretary of War John W. Weeks and Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby.
The Fountains of International Expositions in London, Paris, New York and other cities between 1851 and 1964 combined architecture, technology and theatre. They introduced the first illuminated fountains, the first fountains made with glass and other exotic materials, and the first fountains programmed to perform with music.
Fountains in France provided drinking water to the inhabitants of the ancient Roman cities of France, and to French monasteries and villages during the Middle Ages. Later, they were symbols of royal power and grandeur in the gardens of the kings of France. Today, though they no longer provide drinking water, they decorate the squares and parks of French cities and towns.
Vaillancourt Fountain, sometimes called Quebec libre!, is a large fountain in Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco, designed by the Québécois artist Armand Vaillancourt in 1971. It is about 40 feet (12 m) high and is constructed out of precast concrete square tubes. Long considered controversial because of its stark, modernist appearance, there have been several unsuccessful proposals to demolish the fountain over the years. It was the site of a free concert by U2 in 1987, when lead singer Bono spray painted graffiti on the fountain and was both praised and criticized for the action.
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