Thirsty for Public Art
London landmark ,Hyde Park’s first new drinking fountain in 30 years will undoubtedly create competition and draw traffic from Speaker’s Corner , that institution of generally absurd or foul mouthed pronouncements on any subject worth throwing money into a hat for.A thirsty Marx, Lenin or George Orwell refreshing the palette before amusing the listener with the finer points of politics. The fountain was donated by Michael Freeman and built by sculptor David Harber.
Ready Money, Regent's Park
The sphere is made of mirror polished, marine grade stainless steel, studded with petals of oxidized verdigris bronze.
However it is much smaller than the largest in London, the Ready Money Fountain in Regent’s park, a fourteen tonne colossus of marble built in 1869 by a Bombay philanthropist and a metaphor for the expansiveness of his majesty’s empire at that time. Also, a symbol of the nature of superstition and obsession with wealth.
The world’s largest fountain is found in Singapore and is called the Fountain of Wealth and like in the west they impart metaphysical and superstitious connotations around the theme of material well-being and general good fortune:
”Fountains are essential elements in “feng shui” because the moving water (“shui”) causes the movement of air (“feng”), and being in touch with these natural elements supposedly builds harmony with nature and hence brings good luck. Thus, the Fountain is open daily to the public for “touch water sessions” which shower good luck and energy to those who walk around the spring three times (Figure 2). But even the “lucky spring” is dwarfed by the formidable bronze ring structure of the Fountain, which weighs 85 tonnes and sits on four 14-metre tall bronze pillars, resembling a tripod, but with four legs. While the “perfect circle of the Fountain signifies unending completeness and unity”, the four pillars represent the Four Pillars of Destiny, one of the branches of Chinese astrology that maps out a person’s life and offers advice on what action to take during the various phases of his life.”
According to poet W.B. Yeats, fountains are the home of aquatic nymphs which the ancients called bees, and were seen as the efficient causes of sweetness with the fountain being a metaphor for the honeycomb. ” We must therefore admit, that honeycombs and bees are appropriate and common symbols of the aquatic nymphs, and of souls that are married to generation.”
Hyde Park, David Harber, sculptor
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