a brief appreciation of fountains throughhistory ã± changing functions, appearances and meaning ã± johnscott scott: and so, i also hope that after sucha really good series of highly technical and practically experienced presentations thatwe wonãt mind a little bit of armchair history. because although i trained as an art historian,that was years ago.
Singapore Art Museum (SAM), what weãll do is, i think that there area number of functional and structural, form and function connections in fountains throughhistory and they connect obviously and certainly through our need for water to live and themotivation that our need for water to live exerts on our choice of locations to live.my sense is that as technology allowed us
instead of having to live near water, to bringwater to ourselves, that the functions of our mechanisms for getting water have changed. iãm showing some images that are very recognizableand i start with this from greece. thereãs been a lot of excavation of greek locations.in art history we often refer to paintings on greek vases and ceramics to give us anidea of how things were done and weãre very familiar with that in art conservation andthe history of technology. so if we look at this pot, toward the middle you can see somewhereon the wall, somewhere in greece, at that time was a fountain. iãm sure this was notuncommon and a stream of water was coming out of this head in the wall and being collectedin containers to be taken away.
so although thereãs an aesthetic aspect tothis and we see some architectural, some shorthand architectural features in this painting, centeringon the source of water. since the water is not being dipped out of the river, lake, pond,we know that they had technology at this point to bring water to themselves and we know fromour archeological work that the greeks indeed, and their predecessors and early people, earlycivilizations became civilizations because they were able to find and transport water. hereãs some early, like first century romanfountains from pompeii. itãs now an architectural feature in itself, more overtly and itãsapproached from sides or front. itãs got some containment and weãre starting to getbeyond simply filling our hands or filling
our container. we can dip, we can possiblybring animals to this water and we can also have a stream of water from these faces yousee and an orifice toward the back that allows us to fill containers, wash your hands, orwhatever without having to share the water with the animals. hereãs a kind of baptismal fountain at chartres.here weãre not supposed to drink the water. weãre supposed to be immersed in it as ayoung child. so the fountains still by the late medieval times, still are a center ofimportance and utility and meaning for humans, for people in highly civilized areas and abaptismal fount strongly connected also with religion as of course in the greek and romanera before christianity, the religion was
hardly thought of and was just simply partof culture and of course in the early christianity up through very recently and in our own time,that can be said for a lot of our major religions. here from a book of ours thatãs reproducedin planches, late nineteenth century encyclopedia of clothing, i forget the word he uses, isa depiction of i guess you could say gothic, late medieval scene in an elite setting andwe have a design since itãs a painting, instead of knowing about this kind of renderings andbooks of ours and illustrated manuscripts, we know that they donãt always render exactlyhow things were or a specific fountain in this case, so much as an idea or a designthat might have been good but whatãs important for me to see at this point and you will appreciatethe water thatãs coming from this fountain
could, itãs contained in the pool and youcan see itãs being also so carried off and it even flows through that grate toward thebottom, but it is coming out in streams which you can put a container there and so youãrestill carrying water away from this fountain. iãm sure there were some parts of the habitationthat this shows where water was, also pipes just as it was clearly piped to this fountain.so thereãs a mechanism for presenting water where you can get it and put it in a containerwhere you can water a horse or an animal at the pool and eventually you can do some washingthere. here is a sort of renovation in speyer ofa medieval fountain. a water container at the main square in speyer and itãs well restoredbut itãs an indication of some structure
for centering on water and dipping water thatwould have been contemporaneous or a little earlier than depicted in the painting thati just showed you. i couldnãt tell in looking at this, which youãll see my wife and a coupleof friends in the picture, some travel we were doing, german figures big in our family. here weãre at the place, i donãt speak french,place des vosges in paris where i was able to snap a shot. i didnãt have my ipad withme but clearly if iãd wanted one, even though this is an early seventeenth century locationand the fountain is too, we have the modern world there too. so anyway, weãre also lookinghere at the, what we saw in the beginnings earlier as the basin, the multiple basinstype of fountain, which were the first weãd
seen in rome and so forth, and we still havewater in a pool, and iãm sure in modern times there would have been some alterations tothe surroundings of this fountain but in a pool where you could potentially bathe ordip, but particularly water animals and also the waterãs being delivered in streams sothat you can reach out with a container and get the water. so the form of the fountainis still following the function and the function is still, although itãs really a sophisticateddesign form an aesthetic standpoint, itãs still a water delivery mechanism. whereas here in the same century in rome,is a fountain with a kind of inverted bowl and not so many figures and the water hereis decorative, itãs being lit at night and
so itãs particularly decorative but thereisnãt so much expectation here that youãre going to reach out with a container and getit and weãre seeing this at the very height of the power of the church in rome and a highdegree of design and construction and masonry here and also a fountain which was first madein the very early sixteen hundreds and then remade in the 1670ãs, so design factor werechanged. but weãre starting to see a change, weãreseeing a change just in symbol, a rush through history here with my armchair of history,weãre seeing more emphasis on aesthetics, less emphasis on delivery, although thereis still a pool and when we see those stanchions we donãt forget that even well into the nineteenthcentury people were still using horses and
they were watering them. the other thing tokeep in mind too, is that rome really elevated the technology for aqueducts and for transportingwater for distribution to the people so that the upper classes, the real elite would havewater right into the home, but they had hundreds of fountains in rome for people to go outand get the water they needed in order to keep living and a lot of them were highlydecorative starting with the ancient romans. here in rome also, this was in a locationnear cosma e damiano. iãve been to rome a couple of times but my notes of where i snappedthis shot is nearer to the basilica of saint cosma e damiano in the sort of campatelliarea. this is actually a nineteenth century fountain substantially made of cast iron andone reason i wanted to show it besides just
to take you forward the idea of the fountainthatãs made with a couple of large basins and also this oneãs not functioning thatway as the mouths of those animals around the main basin and the one above are madeto deliver a stream of water that you could catch in a container but i wanted you to see,iãm sure as conservators and talking about biogrowth with fountains, everybody is justamazed to see this. i should have taken the photograph from the other side. this is afigure on top at the sort of finial figure of the fountain and itãs completely coveredwith sort of a mossy growth. so the acquisition of water from fountainsbecomes more of dipping and in fact, in the nineteenth century in new york and here infrankfurt, germany, and the name of this fellow
is stoltze, friedrich stoltze, a literaryperson and see that the most important things functionally here, apart from the main aestheticfunction of this little monument, are that there are basins around where you can justwalk up and dip in and there were little what were originally small streams coming out ofjust above the basin on the pillar. so again, you could dip, you could fill a container,and sometimes itãs amazing to think that even into the early twentieth century in citiesaround the united states and around the world, i know in new york there were drinking fountainswhere they even had like a common cup that would be on a little chain next to each basinand people would just normally come and take a drink out of that cup, something we certainlywouldnãt do today.
paris, which iãm not too familiar with buti loved to visit recently and i noticed that all over the city, they still have these drinkingfountains or water fountains where there is a little stream of water just coming downthe middle. thereãs a cast iron construction, nineteenth century designed as far as i cantell, again armchair history here, but i found that these were really sweet and theyãremaintained reasonable well, though this one isnãt. i ran into the first one that i noticednot far from the sacre coeur and montmartre where all of us tourists must go at leastthe first time weãre in paris, and although i snapped a shot of that, somehow i couldnãtfind the photo. staying in paris at the place du concord, here is sort of i would say anapotheosis of if weãre outside of rome, of
the basins and figures and pool type of fountainand notice here that the streams of water, the jets of water are directed in, theyãrenot directed down where you can get some water, youãre not expected to come with your bucketor your urn or whatever and get water and take it home anymore. this is an expressionof a highly technologically advanced society in the nineteenth century, i believe, is whenthis was made, but i am happy to learn by correction, when the jets of water for a fountainare for decorative and aesthetic effect and the whole fountain is sort of an exultantexpression of the power of the society that was the french empire.so anyway i wanted to show this because it is a very beautiful fountain and it also isthe first one iãm showing you where the water
stream is not there to give you some waterto take home but itãs there for you to enjoy. here is an earlier fountain in stuttgart,germany. so this fountain still is throwing streams of water downward, however at leastnow and i donãt know how much the fountain may have been altered through time in itssurrounds, but at least now you would have to go into the pool to hold your bucket orurn under those streams and theyãre spread streams. theyãre really made to splash andlook nice. another thing about this fountain is that it has a substantial amount of zincsculpture decorating it, look at the little figures down below and iãll give you a littlebit of a close up on that. also in germany, here in frankfurt at therothe house, it looks kind of old design but
thatãs because its neo-gothic, nineteenthcentury, latter nineteenth century, especially people worldwide in western civilization justfell in love with the earlier times, the medieval and especially the gothic and so the frontof this building, which fundamentally the building dates back to the fourteen hundredsand was the rothe house ever since then for hundreds of years, but the facades here area wonderful neo-gothic pastiche of earlier designs and so is the fountain situated infront. now of course it has a protective fence around it and from its design you would thinkif you didnãt know how adept we are in mimicking all kinds of designs today, you would thinkat least that the fence when up sometime in the nineteenth century when the whole thingwas built. but at any rate, the fountain still
has its components of a catchment pool. clearlythis isnãt a functioning fountain right now and to cut down on slides in my presentation,i didnãt give you a close up on this but if we could zoom in, and iãm not adept enough,probably we could zoom in by expanding the image or something, youãd notice that abouthalfway down you have some little figures that are backed up and sort of back arched,very baroque looking little figures and their little heads are there and their mouths arelike this with little holes and so clearly if when this was made it was a functionalfountain, water was spraying out but again there would be no way you could get thereto get some water from it and also you were living in a society in the late nineteenthcentury and later, where you didnãt need
to do that. so the fountains function has become throughoutwestern civilization by this time, for the most part at least for the main urban centersand centers of the reasonably well to do society, their functions are aesthetic. even thoughthey bring out water, the waterãs function is aesthetic as well and weãre getting ourdrinking water in other ways, washing water and our animalãs water. so a number of us were in lisbon a couple,three years ago for a meeting and so got to walk around and see a number of things andso in the area where a number of museums are, a little west of the main center of the city,there are some museums and major monuments
along the river and here looking out fromthe wonderful modern art museum grounds, is a wonderful, huge fountain in the middle ofthe plaza. hereãs a little closer and if i could zoom in a little more you would oryou see immediately anyway, if only from the tertiary arrangements in the flooring butalso from the design of the entire fountain and the way the water is working that thisis a twentieth century fountain. it has of course, heraldic features from earlier timesand is surrounded by a plaza with a lot of nice stone sculpture thatãs clearly of thesame era. now weãre back to new york city, anothernineteenth century creation or early twentieth century creation and so again, we have thebasins, we have the water spilling over edges,
we have the water coming out in discreet pointsbut thereãs absolutely no way you can get over there to get yourself some water. thepool that surrounds it is huge and youãre technically not supposed to get in it butthereãs not much enforced, doesnãt really need to be in that park. itãs a beautifulsetting and it shows really a fountain thatãs certainly just like the entire park, was conceivedfor the relief and recreation and enjoyment of the people of new york and now the peopleof the world that help us survive in new york and not having anything really to do anymorewith our need to have water in order to live or our need to have water in our householdsor to clean or to propel machines or anything like that.
since i am here in kansas city and since iwent to a university nearby in lawrence, i just canãt help showing you the kind of fountainon the campus of the university of kansas. what do you know it has a pool, although thiswas a winter shot, iãm usually around here at winter time for holidays, itãs masonryand bronze, obviously has a tremendous amount of iron staining going on. i donãt know whatkind of maintenance it gets. lawrence is a beautiful town. back to haute de ville, again i donãt speakfrench but this is city hall in paris you can tell by looking at it. but in the 1970ãsthe plaza on this side of city hall, the main entrance side of city hall, was redevelopedor redesigned and the major part on this end
of that redesign area is this water featureand fountain. so it seems like although it fits in the area, itãs certainly very characteristicin design and function of the time and those of us who were in high school or college,university around those years can remember what was being done all over the place withthings in sort a similar aesthetic or design idea. it seems to fit and we see that everyoneis turned away from the water. we still have a big pool of water. water is moving in thatpool. if we look closely we can see little jets that arenãt being used but in the centrallong central part, water is going up in a lot of discreet streams and this can be consideredbeautiful. when i was there it probably wasnãt doing too much moving but i have an idea thatthere is probably some kind of a system that
allows them to entertain with the jets aswell. i just want to point out that this was in april, but the people arenãt paying muchattention to this fountain. itãs an important part of the design of the area but it servesvery much visually aesthetic and as a bench for people to sit. now thatãs not a negativecomment obviously thatãs part of the transition. here is something in frankfurt, germany, atwentieth century fountain. again we have this discreet streams of water are producedbut nobody needs to go there to get water. well we wonãt start talking about the homelessand so forth that do need features like this but they werenãt put there for that reason. something quite a bit more contemporary in1995, the institute for advanced study at
princeton commissioned this, what they call,its title is ã¬free standing fountain.ã® i donãt show, because weãre focusing on fountains,i donãt show that sort of off in a line with the back wall of this free standing fountain,quite a little bit down the lawn, is a free standing blackboard thatãs covered with slate,if you ever see that wonderful little campus there, itãs beautifully decorated with alot of nice sculpture. this is one of them and they form an ensemble but i wanted touse this photograph so that itãs very clear that this is a fountain but youãre not goingto get a drink from this fountain. youãre not going to wash your hands from this fountain.the water in this fountain comes up at the top and thereãs a little catchment at thetop thatãs little cuts in the wall of that
copper up there and the water drains downas you can see in pretty discreet paths down the side and this is the design. actually,examining this and the other sculptures on campus, i think with a little thought especiallygiven this institute of advanced study, where thereãs mathematics and other kinds of teachingand so forth going on, you can see that this would be very meaningful but thereãs actuallyno way you can get a water benefit. back to france at the pompadieu center, hereis a large water feature with sculptures either by or emulating nicky st. cloud and john tingley,so iãll just move on from that, having used time, letãs go back to princeton. very proudprinceton on the left in this whole area anyway is a fountain plaza with a nice big pool andinactive jets around the very tall bronze
sculpture and recently weãve installed andreinstalled ai wei weiãs meeting of animals and zodiac head sculptures here, and so itãsan interesting juxtaposition of 1960ãs design for this whole plaza sort of reminiscent oflincoln center and the sculpture too and then ai wei weiãs contemporary use of really oldchinese designs for his sculpture which are so tremendously popular these days. letãs just wind up. going to an environmentwhich weãve mentioned a little bit so far, itãs amazing in dubai, these fountains thattheyãre making, i saw some kind of a feature, i guess it was on history tv in the backgroundwhile i was doing office work not too long ago, the tremendous technology thatãs beingused to tap water underground and so forth
they are able to not only supply drinkingwater for a new community, well they really are pretty new communities in dubai and thenin some of those wealthy places in the middle east but also to generate fountain entertainment.we talked about las vegas before and the connection actually between technology transfers. i wantedto remind you then of the 1970ãs, maybe we could say someone else knows much better thani do, but the 1970ãs might have been a time when this kind of thing was really gettinggoing and hereãs another view of city hall in paris and its wonderful 1970ãs era fountainand then the same fountain i showed you earlier in action. so iãm very glad to be showing you this.i meant to emphasize more that the control
of water has in a way sort of gone hand-in-handand sometimes exchanged a little or less with art and architecture as expressions and sourcesof wealth and power. anyone who hangs out with me knows that you have to keep me fromtalking about politics so i kept myself from doing it this time but art really and architecturein all of our cultures expresses the power of our civilization and of our technologyand also expresses wealth that comes from that and from control of resources like water.and again in our time, we are noticing that control of water is becoming another politicalthing, and weãre finding that in some parts of the world including our own country, thewater resources are starting to be a factor in that way.
and so, weãve moved with water and fountainsand water acquisitions systems from survival and utility to aesthetics and enjoyment andso iãd like to leave on the note of enjoyment. iãve really enjoyed being here, althoughi havenãt got the lilting voice or really good joke telling, i hope itãs been a littlebit of enjoyment not to be hearing a highly technical presentation.
a brief appreciation of fountains throughhistory ã± changing functions, appearances and meaning ã± johnscott scott: and so, i also hope that after sucha really good series of highly technical and practically experienced presentations thatwe wonãt mind a little bit of armchair history. because although i trained as an art historian,that was years ago.
Singapore Art Museum (SAM), what weãll do is, i think that there area number of functional and structural, form and function connections in fountains throughhistory and they connect obviously and certainly through our need for water to live and themotivation that our need for water to live exerts on our choice of locations to live.my sense is that as technology allowed us
instead of having to live near water, to bringwater to ourselves, that the functions of our mechanisms for getting water have changed. iãm showing some images that are very recognizableand i start with this from greece. thereãs been a lot of excavation of greek locations.in art history we often refer to paintings on greek vases and ceramics to give us anidea of how things were done and weãre very familiar with that in art conservation andthe history of technology. so if we look at this pot, toward the middle you can see somewhereon the wall, somewhere in greece, at that time was a fountain. iãm sure this was notuncommon and a stream of water was coming out of this head in the wall and being collectedin containers to be taken away.
so although thereãs an aesthetic aspect tothis and we see some architectural, some shorthand architectural features in this painting, centeringon the source of water. since the water is not being dipped out of the river, lake, pond,we know that they had technology at this point to bring water to themselves and we know fromour archeological work that the greeks indeed, and their predecessors and early people, earlycivilizations became civilizations because they were able to find and transport water. hereãs some early, like first century romanfountains from pompeii. itãs now an architectural feature in itself, more overtly and itãsapproached from sides or front. itãs got some containment and weãre starting to getbeyond simply filling our hands or filling
our container. we can dip, we can possiblybring animals to this water and we can also have a stream of water from these faces yousee and an orifice toward the back that allows us to fill containers, wash your hands, orwhatever without having to share the water with the animals. hereãs a kind of baptismal fountain at chartres.here weãre not supposed to drink the water. weãre supposed to be immersed in it as ayoung child. so the fountains still by the late medieval times, still are a center ofimportance and utility and meaning for humans, for people in highly civilized areas and abaptismal fount strongly connected also with religion as of course in the greek and romanera before christianity, the religion was
hardly thought of and was just simply partof culture and of course in the early christianity up through very recently and in our own time,that can be said for a lot of our major religions. here from a book of ours thatãs reproducedin planches, late nineteenth century encyclopedia of clothing, i forget the word he uses, isa depiction of i guess you could say gothic, late medieval scene in an elite setting andwe have a design since itãs a painting, instead of knowing about this kind of renderings andbooks of ours and illustrated manuscripts, we know that they donãt always render exactlyhow things were or a specific fountain in this case, so much as an idea or a designthat might have been good but whatãs important for me to see at this point and you will appreciatethe water thatãs coming from this fountain
could, itãs contained in the pool and youcan see itãs being also so carried off and it even flows through that grate toward thebottom, but it is coming out in streams which you can put a container there and so youãrestill carrying water away from this fountain. iãm sure there were some parts of the habitationthat this shows where water was, also pipes just as it was clearly piped to this fountain.so thereãs a mechanism for presenting water where you can get it and put it in a containerwhere you can water a horse or an animal at the pool and eventually you can do some washingthere. here is a sort of renovation in speyer ofa medieval fountain. a water container at the main square in speyer and itãs well restoredbut itãs an indication of some structure
for centering on water and dipping water thatwould have been contemporaneous or a little earlier than depicted in the painting thati just showed you. i couldnãt tell in looking at this, which youãll see my wife and a coupleof friends in the picture, some travel we were doing, german figures big in our family. here weãre at the place, i donãt speak french,place des vosges in paris where i was able to snap a shot. i didnãt have my ipad withme but clearly if iãd wanted one, even though this is an early seventeenth century locationand the fountain is too, we have the modern world there too. so anyway, weãre also lookinghere at the, what we saw in the beginnings earlier as the basin, the multiple basinstype of fountain, which were the first weãd
seen in rome and so forth, and we still havewater in a pool, and iãm sure in modern times there would have been some alterations tothe surroundings of this fountain but in a pool where you could potentially bathe ordip, but particularly water animals and also the waterãs being delivered in streams sothat you can reach out with a container and get the water. so the form of the fountainis still following the function and the function is still, although itãs really a sophisticateddesign form an aesthetic standpoint, itãs still a water delivery mechanism. whereas here in the same century in rome,is a fountain with a kind of inverted bowl and not so many figures and the water hereis decorative, itãs being lit at night and
so itãs particularly decorative but thereisnãt so much expectation here that youãre going to reach out with a container and getit and weãre seeing this at the very height of the power of the church in rome and a highdegree of design and construction and masonry here and also a fountain which was first madein the very early sixteen hundreds and then remade in the 1670ãs, so design factor werechanged. but weãre starting to see a change, weãreseeing a change just in symbol, a rush through history here with my armchair of history,weãre seeing more emphasis on aesthetics, less emphasis on delivery, although thereis still a pool and when we see those stanchions we donãt forget that even well into the nineteenthcentury people were still using horses and
they were watering them. the other thing tokeep in mind too, is that rome really elevated the technology for aqueducts and for transportingwater for distribution to the people so that the upper classes, the real elite would havewater right into the home, but they had hundreds of fountains in rome for people to go outand get the water they needed in order to keep living and a lot of them were highlydecorative starting with the ancient romans. here in rome also, this was in a locationnear cosma e damiano. iãve been to rome a couple of times but my notes of where i snappedthis shot is nearer to the basilica of saint cosma e damiano in the sort of campatelliarea. this is actually a nineteenth century fountain substantially made of cast iron andone reason i wanted to show it besides just
to take you forward the idea of the fountainthatãs made with a couple of large basins and also this oneãs not functioning thatway as the mouths of those animals around the main basin and the one above are madeto deliver a stream of water that you could catch in a container but i wanted you to see,iãm sure as conservators and talking about biogrowth with fountains, everybody is justamazed to see this. i should have taken the photograph from the other side. this is afigure on top at the sort of finial figure of the fountain and itãs completely coveredwith sort of a mossy growth. so the acquisition of water from fountainsbecomes more of dipping and in fact, in the nineteenth century in new york and here infrankfurt, germany, and the name of this fellow
is stoltze, friedrich stoltze, a literaryperson and see that the most important things functionally here, apart from the main aestheticfunction of this little monument, are that there are basins around where you can justwalk up and dip in and there were little what were originally small streams coming out ofjust above the basin on the pillar. so again, you could dip, you could fill a container,and sometimes itãs amazing to think that even into the early twentieth century in citiesaround the united states and around the world, i know in new york there were drinking fountainswhere they even had like a common cup that would be on a little chain next to each basinand people would just normally come and take a drink out of that cup, something we certainlywouldnãt do today.
paris, which iãm not too familiar with buti loved to visit recently and i noticed that all over the city, they still have these drinkingfountains or water fountains where there is a little stream of water just coming downthe middle. thereãs a cast iron construction, nineteenth century designed as far as i cantell, again armchair history here, but i found that these were really sweet and theyãremaintained reasonable well, though this one isnãt. i ran into the first one that i noticednot far from the sacre coeur and montmartre where all of us tourists must go at leastthe first time weãre in paris, and although i snapped a shot of that, somehow i couldnãtfind the photo. staying in paris at the place du concord, here is sort of i would say anapotheosis of if weãre outside of rome, of
the basins and figures and pool type of fountainand notice here that the streams of water, the jets of water are directed in, theyãrenot directed down where you can get some water, youãre not expected to come with your bucketor your urn or whatever and get water and take it home anymore. this is an expressionof a highly technologically advanced society in the nineteenth century, i believe, is whenthis was made, but i am happy to learn by correction, when the jets of water for a fountainare for decorative and aesthetic effect and the whole fountain is sort of an exultantexpression of the power of the society that was the french empire.so anyway i wanted to show this because it is a very beautiful fountain and it also isthe first one iãm showing you where the water
stream is not there to give you some waterto take home but itãs there for you to enjoy. here is an earlier fountain in stuttgart,germany. so this fountain still is throwing streams of water downward, however at leastnow and i donãt know how much the fountain may have been altered through time in itssurrounds, but at least now you would have to go into the pool to hold your bucket orurn under those streams and theyãre spread streams. theyãre really made to splash andlook nice. another thing about this fountain is that it has a substantial amount of zincsculpture decorating it, look at the little figures down below and iãll give you a littlebit of a close up on that. also in germany, here in frankfurt at therothe house, it looks kind of old design but
thatãs because its neo-gothic, nineteenthcentury, latter nineteenth century, especially people worldwide in western civilization justfell in love with the earlier times, the medieval and especially the gothic and so the frontof this building, which fundamentally the building dates back to the fourteen hundredsand was the rothe house ever since then for hundreds of years, but the facades here area wonderful neo-gothic pastiche of earlier designs and so is the fountain situated infront. now of course it has a protective fence around it and from its design you would thinkif you didnãt know how adept we are in mimicking all kinds of designs today, you would thinkat least that the fence when up sometime in the nineteenth century when the whole thingwas built. but at any rate, the fountain still
has its components of a catchment pool. clearlythis isnãt a functioning fountain right now and to cut down on slides in my presentation,i didnãt give you a close up on this but if we could zoom in, and iãm not adept enough,probably we could zoom in by expanding the image or something, youãd notice that abouthalfway down you have some little figures that are backed up and sort of back arched,very baroque looking little figures and their little heads are there and their mouths arelike this with little holes and so clearly if when this was made it was a functionalfountain, water was spraying out but again there would be no way you could get thereto get some water from it and also you were living in a society in the late nineteenthcentury and later, where you didnãt need
to do that. so the fountains function has become throughoutwestern civilization by this time, for the most part at least for the main urban centersand centers of the reasonably well to do society, their functions are aesthetic. even thoughthey bring out water, the waterãs function is aesthetic as well and weãre getting ourdrinking water in other ways, washing water and our animalãs water. so a number of us were in lisbon a couple,three years ago for a meeting and so got to walk around and see a number of things andso in the area where a number of museums are, a little west of the main center of the city,there are some museums and major monuments
along the river and here looking out fromthe wonderful modern art museum grounds, is a wonderful, huge fountain in the middle ofthe plaza. hereãs a little closer and if i could zoom in a little more you would oryou see immediately anyway, if only from the tertiary arrangements in the flooring butalso from the design of the entire fountain and the way the water is working that thisis a twentieth century fountain. it has of course, heraldic features from earlier timesand is surrounded by a plaza with a lot of nice stone sculpture thatãs clearly of thesame era. now weãre back to new york city, anothernineteenth century creation or early twentieth century creation and so again, we have thebasins, we have the water spilling over edges,
we have the water coming out in discreet pointsbut thereãs absolutely no way you can get over there to get yourself some water. thepool that surrounds it is huge and youãre technically not supposed to get in it butthereãs not much enforced, doesnãt really need to be in that park. itãs a beautifulsetting and it shows really a fountain thatãs certainly just like the entire park, was conceivedfor the relief and recreation and enjoyment of the people of new york and now the peopleof the world that help us survive in new york and not having anything really to do anymorewith our need to have water in order to live or our need to have water in our householdsor to clean or to propel machines or anything like that.
since i am here in kansas city and since iwent to a university nearby in lawrence, i just canãt help showing you the kind of fountainon the campus of the university of kansas. what do you know it has a pool, although thiswas a winter shot, iãm usually around here at winter time for holidays, itãs masonryand bronze, obviously has a tremendous amount of iron staining going on. i donãt know whatkind of maintenance it gets. lawrence is a beautiful town. back to haute de ville, again i donãt speakfrench but this is city hall in paris you can tell by looking at it. but in the 1970ãsthe plaza on this side of city hall, the main entrance side of city hall, was redevelopedor redesigned and the major part on this end
of that redesign area is this water featureand fountain. so it seems like although it fits in the area, itãs certainly very characteristicin design and function of the time and those of us who were in high school or college,university around those years can remember what was being done all over the place withthings in sort a similar aesthetic or design idea. it seems to fit and we see that everyoneis turned away from the water. we still have a big pool of water. water is moving in thatpool. if we look closely we can see little jets that arenãt being used but in the centrallong central part, water is going up in a lot of discreet streams and this can be consideredbeautiful. when i was there it probably wasnãt doing too much moving but i have an idea thatthere is probably some kind of a system that
allows them to entertain with the jets aswell. i just want to point out that this was in april, but the people arenãt paying muchattention to this fountain. itãs an important part of the design of the area but it servesvery much visually aesthetic and as a bench for people to sit. now thatãs not a negativecomment obviously thatãs part of the transition. here is something in frankfurt, germany, atwentieth century fountain. again we have this discreet streams of water are producedbut nobody needs to go there to get water. well we wonãt start talking about the homelessand so forth that do need features like this but they werenãt put there for that reason. something quite a bit more contemporary in1995, the institute for advanced study at
princeton commissioned this, what they call,its title is ã¬free standing fountain.ã® i donãt show, because weãre focusing on fountains,i donãt show that sort of off in a line with the back wall of this free standing fountain,quite a little bit down the lawn, is a free standing blackboard thatãs covered with slate,if you ever see that wonderful little campus there, itãs beautifully decorated with alot of nice sculpture. this is one of them and they form an ensemble but i wanted touse this photograph so that itãs very clear that this is a fountain but youãre not goingto get a drink from this fountain. youãre not going to wash your hands from this fountain.the water in this fountain comes up at the top and thereãs a little catchment at thetop thatãs little cuts in the wall of that
copper up there and the water drains downas you can see in pretty discreet paths down the side and this is the design. actually,examining this and the other sculptures on campus, i think with a little thought especiallygiven this institute of advanced study, where thereãs mathematics and other kinds of teachingand so forth going on, you can see that this would be very meaningful but thereãs actuallyno way you can get a water benefit. back to france at the pompadieu center, hereis a large water feature with sculptures either by or emulating nicky st. cloud and john tingley,so iãll just move on from that, having used time, letãs go back to princeton. very proudprinceton on the left in this whole area anyway is a fountain plaza with a nice big pool andinactive jets around the very tall bronze
sculpture and recently weãve installed andreinstalled ai wei weiãs meeting of animals and zodiac head sculptures here, and so itãsan interesting juxtaposition of 1960ãs design for this whole plaza sort of reminiscent oflincoln center and the sculpture too and then ai wei weiãs contemporary use of really oldchinese designs for his sculpture which are so tremendously popular these days. letãs just wind up. going to an environmentwhich weãve mentioned a little bit so far, itãs amazing in dubai, these fountains thattheyãre making, i saw some kind of a feature, i guess it was on history tv in the backgroundwhile i was doing office work not too long ago, the tremendous technology thatãs beingused to tap water underground and so forth
they are able to not only supply drinkingwater for a new community, well they really are pretty new communities in dubai and thenin some of those wealthy places in the middle east but also to generate fountain entertainment.we talked about las vegas before and the connection actually between technology transfers. i wantedto remind you then of the 1970ãs, maybe we could say someone else knows much better thani do, but the 1970ãs might have been a time when this kind of thing was really gettinggoing and hereãs another view of city hall in paris and its wonderful 1970ãs era fountainand then the same fountain i showed you earlier in action. so iãm very glad to be showing you this.i meant to emphasize more that the control
of water has in a way sort of gone hand-in-handand sometimes exchanged a little or less with art and architecture as expressions and sourcesof wealth and power. anyone who hangs out with me knows that you have to keep me fromtalking about politics so i kept myself from doing it this time but art really and architecturein all of our cultures expresses the power of our civilization and of our technologyand also expresses wealth that comes from that and from control of resources like water.and again in our time, we are noticing that control of water is becoming another politicalthing, and weãre finding that in some parts of the world including our own country, thewater resources are starting to be a factor in that way.
and so, weãve moved with water and fountainsand water acquisitions systems from survival and utility to aesthetics and enjoyment andso iãd like to leave on the note of enjoyment. iãve really enjoyed being here, althoughi havenãt got the lilting voice or really good joke telling, i hope itãs been a littlebit of enjoyment not to be hearing a highly technical presentation.