{"id":8404,"date":"2019-06-09T06:10:20","date_gmt":"2019-06-09T06:10:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/?p=8404"},"modified":"2023-07-12T10:35:31","modified_gmt":"2023-07-12T10:35:31","slug":"vaillancourt-fountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/local\/vaillancourt-fountain\/","title":{"rendered":"Vaillancourt Fountain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Vaillancourt<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\"Vaillancourt<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"Vaillancourt<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Of all the controversial elements of San Francisco, Vaillancourt Fountain<\/a> easily evokes the strongest love-it-or-hate-it response of any water feature. Sitting in the corner of Embarcadero Plaza (formerly Justin Herman Plaza) it looks like a large knot of rectangular pipes spewing water in various directions — when it’s on, that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past couple decades the fountain hasn’t always been running, but was turned back on three years ago<\/a> and has mostly been running since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many critics today point out that the fountain fit the area better when it was in the shadow of the similarly Brutalist architecture of the Embarcadero Freeway.<\/a> They have a point. Aside from the visual style, the fountain’s pump moves water at a blistering pace, creating a loud soundscape of splashing water that could easily down out the sound of the freeway that once stood behind it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Vaillancourt<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Unusually for a fountain there’s a walkway through it on a number of concrete slabs. This seems to be a major attraction for kids, but be warned it’s always slippery and you’ll likely get wet walking through it. Also note there’s no handrails so be careful down there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s certainly worth taking a chance on the walkway if you’re up for it, the view from there is completely unique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Vaillancourt<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At some point in recent years the back of the fountain was fenced off. This is unfortunate; two staircases behind the fountain lead to overlook points facing toward the Embarcadero Center (and away from the former Embarcadero Freeway) which was a nice spot to take photos if nothing else. Perhaps there’s a safety concern, but then again these stairs and overlooks always seemed safer to me than walking through the fountain down below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For some reason the fountain is operated by the city’s Recreation & Parks Department despite being located on private property — it’s part of the Embarcadero Center office\/retail complex. This arrangement gives the fountain some protection against critics who want to see it demolished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I will say this: critics of the fountain only seem to crop up when it’s not running. There’s a lesson here about public art. If it’s going to be successful in the long run it needs a maintenance budget. Pretty much everyone appreciates the idea of public art, but when it’s sitting there broken it’s not going to win over any new fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of all the controversial elements of San Francisco, Vaillancourt Fountain easily evokes the strongest love-it-or-hate-it response of any water feature. Sitting in the corner of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","slim_seo":{"title":"Vaillancourt Fountain - MrEricSir.com","description":"Of all the controversial elements of San Francisco, Vaillancourt Fountain easily evokes the strongest love-it-or-hate-it response of any water feature. Sitting"},"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","autoblue_publish_document":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[1403,38,23,1354],"class_list":["post-8404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local","tag-embarcadero","tag-photos","tag-san-francisco","tag-waterfront"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8404"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9777,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8404\/revisions\/9777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mrericsir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}