ARTICLES Archives - Page 71 of 325

Strangely Sublime

I must start by letting you know that I have yet to see this watershape personally. Even so, it is so extraordinarily odd and conceptually brilliant that I couldn't resist writing it up and suggesting we all should add it to our lists of things we need to see while we still can. Situated off an intersection in the heart of Bern, Switzerland, the fountain is called "The Spiral Column (Nature's Way)" and is the work of Meret Oppenheim, a German-born Swiss artist who became an icon of the Surrealist movement and had a career that spanned more than 50 years from the 1930s into the 1980s. This fountain is one of her last works, completed just two years before she died in 1985 - and indeed she didn't last long enough after its dedication to see how it turned out. The original spiral tower was simple enough in form, maybe even a bit dull - sort of like a section of threaded rod with a weird hat. The real genius came in Oppenheim's anticipation of what would happen as the structure flowed year 'round with water from a mineral-rich source: Before long, the water's calcium content began depositing itself on the surface of the tower, adding strange protuberances that keep growing so dramatically that, periodically, the city needs to chip them back to keep the composition from toppling. Born in 1903, Oppenheim moved in distinctly artistic circles as she grew up and eventually moved to Paris at age 18 to study and, more steadily, hang out with other artists. In 1933, she was invited by friends to participate in a Surrealist exhibition and quickly rose to prominence among her peers, before long becoming part of André Breton's influential circle. Later, she returned to her Swiss roots, taking up residence in Bern in the 1960s. The legacy she left behind in her chosen home base is just fascinating: The Spiral Column changes daily as water flows shift in response to the calcium growth. And then there are the various plants, mosses and lichens that have taken hold: They change colors as time passes, growing and fading with the seasons. Finally, in the dead of Bern's long winters, the spiral is wrapped in icicles in odd patches, with the white drapery projecting outward to reveal all of the surface distortions that have accumulated during the year. It's a spectacular idea, one worthy of respect and admiration. But apparently it's something of a civic issue that the composition is also spectacularly ugly. The local attitude toward Oppenheim's fountain reminds me of the occasional uprisings in San Francisco aimed at demolishing the Vaillancourt Fountain, another Brutalist waterfeature that seems under perpetual threat. By comparison, however, the Vaillancourt Fountain is actually on the pretty side, and even I would have objections to "The Spiral Column" if I didn't perceive it as such a timeless, insightful look inside the nature of water, calcium and the persistence of plants and microorganisms. I also think it's both ironic and hilarious that the city has tried to dress the fountain area up with large foreground flower pots: Anyone with enough ill-will to think of ramming the hideous fountain to do away with it will have to destroy conventional beauty on the way. I haven't been to Switzerland since the 1970s and haven't felt much need to go back - until now, that is. This is one weird fountain, and I'm anxious to see it for myself!

It was a challenging site for a long pool that would overflow on all four sides. But with the right foundation and a well-engineered shell, writes Grant Smith, the project came together beautifully -- although it apparently wasn't enough to get his clients to stick around to enjoy the view!

A Slice of Paradise

As an engineering-oriented designer/builder, I know that it simplifies a project if I'm working with like-minded clients: They tend to listen well and get a quick grip on crucial details that have an influence on the outcome. They also tend to operate on the conservative side of the construction spectrum, preferring not to take unnecessary risks for themselves or their families, friends and neighbors. In the project discussed here, not only was the client an engineering and general contractor, but he and his wife were successful real estate investors with extensive holdings. As a result, they had the wherewithal, knowledge and desire to have the pool and spa behind their San Diego-area home stay put on the middle of a long

Organizing Chaos

The backyard-design process, it's been said, is something like completing a jigsaw puzzle: You start with a framed space and assemble available pieces to fill in the picture. But there are two problems with this common analogy: First, the number of available pieces far exceeds the physical capacity of the frame and, second, there are no precut tabs or notches to guide placement of the selected pieces. So you'd be closer to the mark if you said that design is like the worst, most challenging jigsaw puzzle ever - and even then, the typical backyard-design task is much harder. Shining a light on this process is

Fishy Affairs

There comes a time with most ponds when the owners will want to add fish to supplement the original population or replace pets lost to age or predators. It's a perilous step, notes Mike Gannon, which is why he prepares his clients for the occasion early on with words of caution.

Powering the Press

'Exceptional projects for outstanding clients don't fall off trees: You need to reach these people somehow,' declared Brian Van Bower in his Aqua Culture column for March 2004, 'and make your presence known. 'There are numbers of ways of achieving this contact, and I'd argue that

Rallying to a Cause

A couple weeks back, I wrote about an arrangement that enabled a pool to reopen through an unusual partnership between a school and a pool-lacking YMCA (click here). Since then, I've come across another sort of arrangement that will restore an iconic watershape and

Planting Pains

'Early in the history of garden design - dating back to the earliest days of civilization in Sumeria, Egypt and China - plants took center stage in garden spaces.' With that observation, Bruce Zaretsky opened his On the Level column in February 2009, then added: 'Terraces and hanging gardens were built not for their innate ornamental qualities, but rather to display the plants they contained. Always, the prized plant was

Decisions, Decisions

I've hesitated to bring it up, but you may recall that, last May, I wrote about finally getting around to updating our vintage-1983 pool and spa with a new interior finish and some cosmetic and equipment upgrades. I had every good intention of following through and indeed made some

The Family Plan

I chatted a couple weeks back with a designer acquaintance who wanted my advice on the best U.S. city to visit if her goal was seeing a bunch of great watershapes. She was starting to plan a summer trip for her family, she said, and wanted to spend a day or two taking in some great fountains and waterfeatures while her spouse ran around amusement parks and other active attractions with their two young sons. It was a tougher question than I figured it would be - a process that led me to compose this unusual Travelogue on my advice to her. Once I'd covered the obvious choices of Kansas City or St. Louis and my hometown of Los Angeles, my mind flooded with other possibilities coast to coast, from Boston, New York and Philadelphia in the northeast to Seattle and Portland in the northwest. Then I thought of San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Chicago and other contenders, including Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. Of course, I never factored in nearby amusement parks - she was on her own there. But it occurred to me that she could select any of these cities and have more than enough to do while the rest of the family was off exhausting itself at some theme park or waterpark. Once we hung up, I jotted down the city list for ready reference and expanded it a bit to include Atlanta, Denver, San Diego, Orlando, Pittsburgh and New Orleans. Within a few minutes after hanging up, I started having odd misgivings and called her back: I felt awkward about participating in splitting up her family during its vacation trip, I said, and wanted to make the earnest suggestion that she should spend a day or two with her husband and kids visiting fine waterfeatures as a family. True, the FDR Memorial in Washington is not as stimulating as a roller coaster, but it includes wonderful water treatments by Lawrence Halprin - and there's also plenty of additional aquatic spirit to be found on and around the Capitol Mall. I further suggested that spectacles such as the water show in the Main Fountain Garden at Longwood Gardens near Philadelphia or the eruption of the jets at the Bellagio in Las Vegas have more going for them than do typical theme-park rides. She took all of this under advisement and I know I'll hear how it works out (or doesn't) after the fact. But I have to say that, when we spoke the second time, I was motivated by my own sense of pride and by what I saw as a valuable opportunity: From the waterfeatures at the Getty Center in Los Angeles to the 9/11 Memorial in New York, there's inspiration to be found in fountains and waterfeatures from coast to coast. As a watershaper, there's also a cool sense of professional association in play. In every case, I said, watershapes in these places remind me of why I love what I do - and of the pride I feel after 20 years of wandering the fringes of projects that take my breath away. In wrapping up the second exchange with my designer friend, I couldn't help talking about the inspiration I knew she'd find on her family's road trip, then left her with this closing thought: What she sees while alone might fuel her creative fires once she returns home, but think about the impression seeing water at its dynamic best will make on the kids and even her husband - and how proud they'll be that she is somehow a part of it. More than that, think about looking at watershapes through a child's eyes - and of how cool it will be to let them in on how things work and how those who designed and built a given watershape used fascinating technologies to achieve these stirring effects. Heck, it might be enough to incline a kid or two to follow in your footsteps - and what could be nicer than that?

Designing and installing botanical gardens may be soul-satisfying, but it's also a remarkable professional challenge. As Raymond Jungles writes in the first of three articles on the subject, these projects have multiple audiences, each of them bringing massive expectations to the table.

Forging a Path

As a landscape architect, I'm passionate about creating gardens of every variety. But I like my work to benefit as many people as possible, so I get particularly engaged when these spaces are accessible to the general public. This explains why I love working on botanical gardens and exploring the ways they allow me to focus on plants and education in fundamental ways. Through the past 30 years, I've had the privilege of working on slices of four different botanical gardens, so I also know the