Vaillancourt Re-imagined

The Vaillancourt Fountain in Justin Herman Plaza gets no respect.  The Canadian artist Armand Vaillancourt titled the piece Québec libre! when it was installed in 1971.  The City sent out a crew to remove the title from the fountain and did so numerous times after the artist himself repainted it — so much for respecting an artist’s work and artistic intent.  Today the piece is universally known as the Vaillancourt Fountain in San Francisco.  It also has a poor reputation in part fueled by San Francisco’s legion of self-appointed art critics and hack newspaper columnists.   I LOVE the fountain, it’s one of San Francisco’s best works of public art and, of course, looks best when water is gushing through it.

Now, I would never be so disrespectful as to suggest modifying an artist’s finished work, but I would love to see some changes made to the setting for the piece.  When the fountain was installed in 1971 it was placed in front of the Embarcadero Freeway and off ramps wrapped behind the fountain.  Today the freeway is gone and the space is more open and welcoming. 

Let’s re-imagine the Vaillancourt Fountain, or to be exact, Justin Herman Plaza.  Currently the fountain uses fresh water.  Imagine if an underground conduit pumped saltwater from San Francisco Bay into the fountain.  Imagine if we remove some of the concrete perimeter.  We could create a shore around the fountain filled with tide pools and native marsh plants.  The fountain’s basin would even start to fill with native wildlife.  Water could flow in and out, and like a natural salt marsh, act as a filter for bay water.  Imagine restoring a small piece of Justin Herman Plaza to the state it was back before 1849.  When there were tidal flats instead of skyscrapers.  We successfully restored Crissy Field now it’s time to bring a bit of nature back to the concrete jungle at the foot of Market Street.

The Single Best Piece of Public Art in the World

For a city of its size and stature, San Francisco has very little public art.  Part of the problem is, as the expression goes, we just can’t have nice things.  When Zhang Huan’s amazing Three Heads Six Arms was installed in Civic Center in 2010, it was repeatedly vandalized.  The Keith Haring sculpture at Moscone Center was just removed for a refurbishing that sadly has to include graffiti removal.  After a sunny weekend, parks like Dolores Park and Fort Mason are literally trashed.  I love my City, but at times, San Francisco is the City of Bad Roommates. 

The other challenge public art faces in San Francisco is public backlash.  We are the city where NIMBYism can be everyone’s favorite hobby.  Sometimes it’s for good.  My very own block was among those to be torn down in the 1960’s, all to make way for a never-built freeway that was supposed to cut through Golden Gate Park.  To see the other side of public opposition, one can just visit the Sculpture Meadow at the di Rosa Preserve in Napa.  Many of the pieces were intended for public art in San Francisco and other Bay Area cities.  They were stopped due to public outcry.  A small group of self-appointed “art critics” often manages to prevent plenty of good public art form being installed in San Francisco.

Perhaps we can manage without more public art because we have, what could be called. the single best piece of public art in the world.  Of course I am speaking of the Golden Gate Bridge.  I never take it for granted.  It still impresses me every time I see it.  This year our bridge is celebrating its 75^th Anniversary.

Yesterday I visited the California Historical Society and saw the exhibit A Wild Flight of Imagination – The Story of the Golden Gate Bridge.  I thought I knew a lot about the bridge and had seen most of the photos.  It’s a fantastic show filled with photos, architectural drawings and art that is not published in most of the books about the Golden Gate Bridge.  The exhibit also explores the opposition to building a bridge across the Golden Gate (public opposition is nothing new).  80 years ago many people could not imagine a bridge spoiling the Golden Gate.  I can see their point, but it’s hard to imagine San Francisco without its bridge.