A cool and rainy Autumn evening at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York City, serves as the perfect platform to showcase the new fountain in center stage of the Lincoln Center refurbishment, designed by firm Diller Scorfidio + Renfro of the Highline, Juilliard School and Boston ICA fame. The original fountain, designed by Philip Johnson, holds a special place in the city’s heart so its replacement was contravercial. The results reflect Johnson’s aesthetic whilst taking the concept further with a sense of immediacy and refinement.
This particular evening the rain has drenched the granite forecourt, making for glassy reflections that sweep up to the edge of the UFO…er fountain. Suddenly it bursts life as myriad jets rise in the air and splash on it’s spacey spheroid base. A base that looks like it would be quite comfortable to settle upon, especially if you are the swimming in waterfalls type. It is all a celebration of the joy of the splash to me. This is a sizable atom of waterpark.
At night in particular the light of the fountain echoes the galactic lighting and sputnik chandeliers in the auditoriums of the main Metropolitan Opera House, Avery Fisher Hall, and the bejewelled diamante-come-satellite lighting in The David H. Koch Theater. Simple lines and curves in the granite base of the fountain are delicate and incidental, leaving the drama for the linear spouts that form and the beauty of the water in it’s own glory.
