Beautiful isn't it? I love this fountain because of its overall design. It's simplistic yet complicated. It begins to achieve everythign we try to achieve as designers; say as much as you can by saying very little. It lays on campus as an icon of pure elegance which is completely ironic on the IUPUI campus. The reason that it is so ironic is because IUPUI lies in the heart of downtown Indianapolis (insert screeching noises, sirens, horns, yelling, etc. etc.). So for somethign that elegent to be amidst all of the noise just makes you stop and say whoa... The fountain is sleek yet textured, quiet yet you hear the water, and elegant yet simple.
The elegence may be nice but, I can think of so many more things the money could have been spent on. We are such a diverse school! Why can't we let the artists and the engineers and the designers of our respective schools design our elegence? Why not let our own students put our elegence on our campus instead of wasting the money on a fountain that is just there. We could take that money and spend it on research. Donate it to cancer foundations or the study for diabetes. It's not so much bad design, it is bad design choice.
Like the last line -- not so much a bad design, it is a bad design choice.
ReplyDeleteGood analysis and you introduce some strong ideas -- can you back them up with any examples of a more "grass roots" approach to public art?
keep up the strong ideas
Mannheimer