Things move so fast in our world. Every day, by plying away with so many hours at the computer as I seem to any more, I learn so much which is new to me and I see such wonderful accomplishments by others. It really just blows my mind. What one would consider a very tightly-niched subject – paving materials – is frankly immense, it turns out. What has occurred over time is a stunning array of breath-taking artisan creativity, from even ancient days up to now.
I am old enough to recall a time when “interlocking concrete bricks” was a term given to either the straight-ahead ‘blocks’ of square and rather boring brick pavers or to the ‘star-shaped’, or the serrated engineered brick of the past. At the time, the revolutionary aspect of this product was in their structural properties, above all. With a PSI Rating of 8,500 PSI, they seemed the next thing to Granite itself. By using manufacturing processes which produced absolutely perfect fitting elements, the segmentation and the physical durability seemed just plain off the charts, even then. But they were not known at the time for being particularly gorgeous.
My, my, what a few years has wrought:
(left click images to enlarge)
This piece above was installed by a company entirely devoted to installing “Labyrinths”. I adore looking at their work and gladly share it with you now. Their success as an incredibly successful niche business is testified to at this website – Labyrinths In Stone – and it supplies the outermost reaches of sheer professional craftsmanship, to say nothing of their fascinating designs. Below is a somewhat “pedestrian” issue of almost “average” quality:
But these gorgeous constructions are mere reminders of what is possible. I have personally worked with products whose mere shape and color provide a stunning effect, simply by laying them down properly. Design, in these cases, means far less than simply presenting a course over which they can be seen.
Here is a favorite brick style of mine called “Bishop’s Hat” (Tan and Cream) we installed for a Reno family:
(enlarged, this looks incredible, even up close)
There are some things which – installed in the right spot – make it more than it was and maybe better than someone might have hoped. Paver technology has advanced like a rocket, from occasional patios and walkways to entire airports such as that of Hong Kong. Once again, as I have mentioned often in this blog, their innate durability, their breath-taking level of ‘hardness’ – 8500 PSI – and their amazingly engineered tight fit make them a superb choice of surface. Obviously, the ability to simply replace those ruined by stains or breakage factors in as a huge plus.
But suppliers and designers of brick also brought an “Antiquing” ability, by tumbling pavers inside sand-filled machines and prematurely aging them. “Tumbled Pavers” now represent an entire niche of their own and supply a very ‘walked-on’ appearance. Combined with media such as concrete edging, the results can be impressive:
My own constructions, for example, have led from the above to the below over the course of an ‘old favorite’ project:
(combined with the soft security lighting (7 Watts) along the edge, this very rural home had a minimum of interference with the gorgeous night skies.)
But these are the more pedestrian examples, pardon the pun. There are far more bizarre and excitingly-designed edifices out there to beguile us with, created by wondrous designers and installers, both.
Interlocking bricks can now be made as custom pieces, allowing a range of creativity that unleashes an entire new galaxy of possibilities.
Now a brick can be engineered for purposes of producing patterns in their actual laying which reveal a designer’s intent in its display of complexity or resonance with other factors.
The patterns below are seen outside the Music Conservatory in Toronto, Canada. The architect worked with a computer simulation of phonic graphs, displayed in these laying patterns, whereby the patrons cross over the very music they are entering the place to hear.
I celebrate women. I like women and I support the rise of their settlement into legitimate social, business and – in this case – musical positions based on merit. Strictly speaking, I suspect we will all gain from an increasing prominence of women in all our worldy affairs.
This is a ten minute video (which suffers from a visible glitch at the outset but which clears quickly) of a live performance by a group called Material, doing a song called Mantra. The group was formed under the leadership of bassist Bill Laswell, who has an amazingly eclectic history, especially considering he played with the controversial experimental guitar great Sonny Sharrock, a weird and unconventional electric guitarist. Needless to say, a favorite of mine.
Well, the dominant figures in this unusual piece are the two women – Amina Claudine Myers on the Hammond Organ and Lily Haydn on the violin. I think both ladies get more from their instruments than most of us even knew existed, I really do.
Women are making inroads into acquiring the celebrations they deserve in more creative forms of modern music. When I see what passes for (radio-played) music over the past billion years, I find a restriction of talent and of creation which, most of the time, lodges a mud ball in my brain, just with lipstick. Prepackaged stuff grates on me like nobody’s business.
In a performance such as this, we get to watch them stretch out some and be who they can be. The organ work and the violin work are two of the most creative uses of those instruments I have ever seen – and all in one concert piece!
Actually, some do better than water. Check out this fountain and guess what material the Bellagio Casino is featuring………..
Yes, that would be four different varieties of……..Chocolate.
What a Hijack! I admit I tried breaking in but was caught, handcuffed and led to the Pay Section where they only had 450 different chocolate items. They mentioned the scores of Choco-holics who gathered around this fountain and that my behavior was not the slightest bit unusual. They have a Drool Patrol who are often called in for clean-up purposes.
So where were we? Oh – sure! Lawns. No? Oh, fountains again? OK, just to say we did, here’s an unusual one, found right smack in the middle of Chicago:
Spanish artist Jaume Plensa designed the Crown Fountain to be a tribute to the people of Chicago. The faces that appear to spit streams of water out from the towers are those of 1,000 Chicagoans rotated at random. Though water only flows from mid-spring to mid-fall each year in consideration of Chicago’s often nasty winter weather, the LCD screens are on full time. This one and the next one – Andres Heller-designed – have been shown in here before, but their fascinating uniqueness deserve a reprise. In my opinion, there are some things which never get old. This is from the entrance to the Swarovski headquarters in Wattens, Austria.
William Pye – a killer website here – is another searcher taken from among the multitude of artists featuring water in fountains as well as in actual works of art – or both. His work typically is most prminently identified from his incredible Vortex Water Sculpture called Charybdis – here it is:
Other works of Mr. Pye are clearly constructed by someone who is utterly fascinated with water and its effects, such as this gorgeous work below and a more distant perspective of the same work taken from farther out. This work is called “Canyon” and it fits:
Please enlarge these to get their fuller effect -
Other William Pye works include this gorgeous metal piece outside of Lloyd’s Shipping in London, a work entitled “Argosy”:
Pye’s ultimate fascination did indeed result in ways and means to watch the kenetic properties of rushing water as it appears as a flowing entity over different surfaces and at different pulsations. He was also hugely interested in how light performed in and through water, a gift he dealt out very lushly.
Below is a 6 story drop of a cascade which is attached to a wall. It’s pretty long but totally worth the look in here:
The cascade consists of a vertical rill of water flowing down six storeys of bronze panels that are sculpted to create a ripple effect in the water. Four glass panels forming the water wall are suspended from a cantilevered tubular structure, which both holds them in place and acts as a conduit for the water supply. Water is distributed evenly along the length of the panels and flows over the back and front surfaces of the glass. The water is caught in the shallow granite pool into which fibre-optic lights are set. These pick out the colours in the bronze backdrop and highlight the shapes created by the rippling water.
Pretty cool! ;-)
Back to chocolate………………..
This “Chocolate Fountain” you can actually dip from. It is from a place with the Other-Worldly title of the “Cologne Chocolate Museum” which, in itself, is enough to drive certain persons I know to light-headedness. I have therefore supplied a link here – Chocolate Museum – so that they can verify its existence and plan accordingly.
My advice is to wait a week.
A small bit of distraction, first……….. I always hate omitting Tivoli, simply because I think rather ancient stuff rocks:
But then, I was in Korea for a while in another life and what they did to this bridge I can’t help but be proud of and to absolutely adore:
Here is a very cool video of this – Banpo – bridge in operation:
In a parallel Universe, I write a blog for a local Louisville company: Pond And Fountain World. (link included). In so doing, it has allowed me to study and roam around, looking at an absolutely fascinating subject. Not only does the blog feature what they sell – currently-retailed pond and fountain accouterments, including an excellent selection of pre-made fountains, ready to deliver and install – but it also gives me the right and reason to explore the entirety of the world of fountains, internationally.
Wow! What a treat. Below from The University of Connecticut’s Waterbury Campus:
The designs of those who build these things come from a creativity one can only guess at in its artistic purity, apparent freedom and in their sometimes overall immensity. “Mind-boggling” comes to mind as we tour the most outlandish and absolutely breath-taking water-art sculptures, sitting as so many do in the public squares of our major cities. From the work of Lawrence Halprin in Portland, Oregon -
My great good friend, Steve, gets to sit at the bottom of Halprin’s Ira Keller Fountain in the face of the seeming vastness of the fountain while it crashes down, so nearby:
These gorgeous civic fountains are now becoming less formal and more amenable to “audience participation these days – a welcome respite from an overly-litigious society in general, which I welcome wholeheartedly:
Here is Halprin’s stunning blend of “The Natural” and “The Modern” work at the FDR Memorial in Washington, DC, shown here at night -
Some History
Fountains were initially creations which were fed from aqueducts – the original plumbing apparatus, dating back at least 2,500 years. Often, these aqueducts would send water downwards, creating the pressure which allowed the newly-minted fountains in Greece, for initial historical example, to spurt water out for public and private consumption. Fountains and public water sources, fed by the rivers, lakes and streams in the mountains, began appearing around 260 BC in Ancient Greece. The notion of “siphoning” became pioneered and created works which could allow water to run or not run, depending on opening and closing a valve.
In the end, aqueducts would literally terminate in city centers or plaza’s where the resulting pressure and large quantities of water supplied could be more fully appreciated by attaching art work and form to the terminus.
The Trevi Fountain, in fact, Rome’s famous “Fountain Of Love” featured by Hollywood so many times, was just this sort of product.
(Picture credit here to Tour Of Rome, along with the quote below, capsulizing better than I could, a brief history of its construction.)
“There had been a source of water at this site for over a thousand years, although it was not until 1485 that Pope Nicholas V commissioned Gianlorenzo Bernini to create the fountain, but the project had to be abandoned when Pope Urban VIII died in 1644. Then in 1732, Niccolò Salvi was employed by Pope Clement XII to continue with the work, with the result being the Baroque masterpiece that completely dominates the little square today.”
For me, it is the mixture of “chthonic” elements – fit for the Gods alone – which assemble in the primordial primitive juxtaposition of the jagged rocks which also seem to be emitted by and to be so “at one” with the building behind. Like our own consciousness, we see a remarkable blend of the absolutely most Elemental mixed with the modern human and more mundane elements of muscle, posture and expressions. A fountain like this hits our perceptions in mental regions usually reserved for art. But then, who said fountains are not art?
Another personality who found the Lunatic Fringe of Modern Fountains is a Japanese designer named Isamu Noguchi. Below is his what is arguably his most famous work – his famous “Nine Floating Fountains”, constructed for the Osaka World’s Fair in 1970.
Here it is in daylight, obviously on a windy day -
And below is the night-time look for which it has become so famous:
But Mr. Noguchi was not done. He obviously loved the impractical and the utterly whimsical – and he was a master at it:
He also had a definite sense of humor!
We owe debts of gratitude on an unimaginable scale to the artists who have taken our technologies and our appreciation for Water Art to absolutely absurd but-always-interesting lengths.
Some of them have driven cities and countries to drink! Take Mr. Vaillancourt’s concrete irritation to the city of San Fransisco’s more “proper” sensibilities as an example. “Please”, many said, “take it!”.
Some folks just need a sense of humor!
Can’t we all be friends?
Fountains are very nearly a “First Love” for me. It would not take much to get me all the way there, either.
Can I get some Love for the Paris Stravinsky Fountain???
But these are the more pedestrian examples, pardon the pun. There are far more bizarre and excitingly-designed edifices out there to beguile us with, created by wondrous designers and installers, both.
