Vaillancourt Fountain — Attraction in San Francisco

Sculptures are three dimensional objects which must be viewed from multiple perspectives to be fully appreciated. This one can be climbed and seen from the top, admired from it's own amphitheater or explored in the passage at the base of the wall where you can walk on water. This promises a full and fulfilling experience, but I refused to interact with this monstrosity.

I was a small child in Quebec when DeGaulle proclaimed "Vive le Québec libre", a sentiment expressed by the Vaillancourt on his brutalist piece, which smells of raw 197ps macho-ness, the night prior to the opening.

An artist defacing his own work should indicate how the work should be treated, especially as he flew in to San Francisco to make a positive statement when U2s Bono also defaced it with a rick and...

The fountain no longer works and has a barricade around it and is either being sold off or demolished soon at the time of writing this. The installation is beautiful tho, maybe a bit brutal for some but at one point it would have been a beautiful fountain with steps and views on top, stepping stones to walk on a long the wall on top of the water. It may not be working anymore but my imagination lets me create what it would have been and being there was amazing and just knowing millions of people have passed by it is great to know and feel too. See it before it goes! Maybe they save it, that's my hope, install it somewhere else or let citizens in San fransisco who want it to be able to take pieces with permission from the...

The Vaillancourt Fountain is far from universally loved—but that’s precisely what makes it compelling public art. It’s raw, interactive, and unapologetically confrontational. Its boldness invites us to question what public spaces—and art within them—should be.

That said, aesthetic merit alone can't outweigh clear safety risks and extremely high upkeep costs. If San Francisco integrates the fountain into new park designs with structural reinforcement, restoration, and modernized safety features, it could satisfy both...