Travelogues & History
My recent time in Philadelphia was actually a return after a long break: When my brother lived there in the 1970s and '80s, I would frequently extend business trips when I was in the area to spend time with him in what became one of my favorite cities. I haven't done much more than pass through since he moved away, but my daughter lives there now and has given me a great reason to renew my acquaintance with the place. Among the coolest things
One thing I can safely say about the California city where I grew up is that it's a lot different from what it was like when I was a kid. Back in the 1960s, the area across from Santa Monica's City Hall was a mass of parking lots, office buildings and other hard, unattractive surfaces. The famed Civic Auditorium was at one end of the street, and a Moderne-style
Everything I write about in these Travelogues is a personal experience, but this one in particular hits very close to home. I heard a lot about this sculpture, known now as "Heliconia Loop," for months as it was being created, following along avidly as the deadline for
Working outdoors in the California sun is typically seen as a desirable perk, especially when, as in this case, the on-site alternative was working below ground in a confined labyrinth of narrow passages with limitless opportunities for banging your head. But here, it's my general sense that the plumbers working below ground on Hearst Castle's Neptune Pool (San Simeon, Calif.) had an easier row to hoe than did the marble applicators working in the open air. For one thing, tasks performed on the interior surface of the pool were
One of my favorite destinations in downtown Los Angeles is the Central Library. Not only is it an amazing resource with the books and recordings it circulates to citizens and scholars, but it also houses wonderful display spaces where all sorts of thoughtfully curated exhibitions await visitors. I've stopped in many times since the 1960s and count it among southern California's
It's not often that an opportunity to work on anything as renowned as the Neptune Pool comes around. Built first as a reflecting pool, transformed into an oval-shaped plunge pool and, as Hearst Castle assumed massive proportions, ultimately finished as a 350,000-gallon swimming pool that's probably the most widely recognized watershape in the world, it's a pleasure just to see it, let alone help preserve it for future generations. We at Terracon, an engineering firm based in Olathe, Kans., came to the project through our acquisition late in 2014 of Rowley International, the aquatic design and engineering company based in Palos Verdes Estates, Calif. William Rowley, its principal and a specialist in sophisticated aquatic complexes - and, equally important
From time to time, I'll come across a fountain or waterfeature where jets or streams of water are used to suggest "motion" on the part of an accompanying fixed object. The objects in question are typically made of stone or metal - that is, materials embodying solidity, heft, timelessness and the utter absence of motion.
Many years ago, as one example, we published an article by frequent WaterShapes contributor Randy Beard, who wrote about a composition he worked on in which a platform of flowing water at the base of a sculpture of a breaching whale served to suggest it had recently broken the water's surface (click here). And one of my all-time favorites is the galloping-horse sculpture in Dallas, where the hooves of some in the line of dashing equine splendor raise splashes from a stream they're crossing (click here).
A half-dozen other examples of fountains of this type also come quickly to mind, but you get the idea. Done well, this is a cool, softening, naturalizing, communicative, engaging approach - and it gets even better when you're just walking along the street and happen to catch the offered illusion at a favorable angle.
That happened to me not long ago on a visit to San Diego, Calif., where I was walking along and minding my own business when I came across "Bow Wave," a fountain in which the business end of a big ship plies its way through water washing along its flanks. At a glance, it suggests the abundant thrust of a ship's passage as well as the massive resistance it had to overcome to make any headway.
From most angles, you can see that the ship is cut off a short distance back of the bow, but I first saw it in such a way that the leading edge of the sculpture was coming right at me (pretty much at the same angle seen in the image above). It's quite a nice illusion when it catches you off guard - and a slightly startling one at that.
Designed and sculpted by Malcolm Leland and installed in San Diego's Civic Center Plaza in 1972, the composition does a wonderful job in its suggestion of motion; in fact, it's among the best I've ever seen. Its success, alas, reminds me of the horror I felt when I saw that the fountain basin for "The Runner" had been insensitively redesigned in St. Louis: There, the entire, previously successful illusion of motion was cut off by thoughtless jet placement (click here); in San Diego, by contrast, Leland got it just right.
The sculptor was something of a local celebrity in San Diego, but I can find no other instances in which he put his elemental skill as a watershaper to use in any way. That's a pity, because he certainly knew how to put that medium to good use - simple, but effective.
San Diego's not a big town. The next time you're there for business or pleasure, wander by the Civic Center Plaza and be prepared for a nautical treat.
For me, one of the highlights of the 20th Anniversary Celebration for Genesis was the place most of us stayed: The Allegretto Vineyard Resort is a spectacular facility created as an extension of the imagination of the property's owner, Douglas Ayres. The hotel embodies an eclectic blend of design concepts, from dashes of feng shui to dollops of talk-to-the-land spiritualism mixed in with
The first of this pair of articles mentioned that Julia Morgan had completed the architecture program at Beaux-Arts in Paris in three years rather than the usual five, but I didn't mention all of the circumstances. One of the rules of that institution prohibited the instruction of students after their thirtieth birthdays, which seems a totally bizarre limitation to us now but apparently made sense to French academicians at the turn of the 20th Century. Given the delays in her gaining a position at the school, she'd entered the program with the clock ticking and really had no choice but to
When I wrote about Lawrence Halprin's Keller Fountain in Portland, Ore., in August 2012, I had meant to cover its Portland cousin, the Lovejoy Fountain, within a few months that have now turned into several years. Apologies for failing to double back sooner, because they really do fit together better than this span of time would suggest.
Lovejoy Plaza was the first completed installation in what is now known as the Portland Open Space Sequence, which includes four separate urban environments linked by promenades in a span covering eight blocks. Physically, Lovejoy Plaza is the second of the four spaces in the chain, which starts with the Source Fountain, moves past the Lovejoy Fountain, rolls through Pettygrove Park and ends up at the Keller Fountain.
Halprin was a pioneering advocate for this sequenced, themed approach to arranging urban spaces, and the fact that he became involved in Portland at a time of 1960s-style urban redevelopment gave him the opportunity to exercise his philosophy on a grand scale - and, more important, with a relatively clean slate.
The Lovejoy Fountain is a beautiful example of Halprin's aquatic work - varied elevations, expressive materials, dramatic contours, vigorous flows, wonderful sound. He's a master of mood management, in this case surrounding the fountain's rougher edges with plants and trees that soften its visual features and make the plaza more inviting. He's also a master of the art of engagement, providing all sorts of ways for passersby to get up close to the water and interact with it on multiple levels (this despite the fact that there are signs warning against coming in contact with it).
In this case as with several of his other designs, the Lovejoy Fountain is also a brilliant performance space - no surprise given Halprin's frequent collaborations with his wife, Anna, an accomplished performer who certainly encouraged him to look at public spaces as stages for dancers, backdrops for musicians and places for playful movement around the water. (One of the videos linked below put the fountain's artistic flexibility on brilliant display.)
The four spaces were designed between 1963 and 1970, with Lovejoy Plaza completed first, in 1966. Satoru Nishita served as partner-in-charge for the project after becoming a principal at Lawrence Halprin + Associates in 1964.
I like everything about this fountain, from its approachability to its reflection of nature and its debt to terrain I know well from my own time spent exploring the Columbia River Valley and the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges. It's manifestly a composed, artificial space, but it operates on a level where, like a great abstract painting, it gives observers the chance to run free with their own interpretations and responses.
If you can't tell by now, I'm a big fan of Mr. Halprin's work. The next time you're in the Great Northwest, spend an afternoon in downtown Portland and I think you'll see why.
To see an odd 360-degree video of the Lovejoy Fountain, click here and be sure to use the effect. It takes a while to get down to business, but it's worth the wait.
To see a video in which Lovejoy Fountain host an interactive art project, click here.
