House £s? Garden 
THE ORNAMENTAL MOVEMENT 
OE WATER IN CITY STREETS . 1 
111.—Concluded. 
W HILE the feud between the Big- 
Endians and Little-Endians, observed 
by Gulliver on his imaginary journey, has 
been rivaled in acrimony by controversies 
over the placing of public monuments in 
American cities, few such disputes have been 
recorded over street fountains, or other form 
of water decoration. For this, there is 
an obvious reason—the scarcity of such 
fountains. Nevertheless, there is an abund¬ 
ance of good sites, to choose between whose 
claims might 
often prove dif¬ 
ficult. The 
number o i 
available loca¬ 
tions that pre- 
sentthemselves 
to one who 
seeks them may 
surprise those 
who know the 
tendency of the 
plans of Ameri¬ 
can cities to¬ 
ward the rec¬ 
tangular, the 
correct, the 
unimaginative. 
Where, it may 
be asked, is a 
b a s i n to find 
lodgment in the 
crowded public ways of trolley-ridden towns? 
How may one place an architectural or 
sculptural structure for the ornamental 
movement of water in a street already taxed 
to its capacity by throngs of busy people 
and a steady tide of vehicles? 
Such queries from the laymen of city 
councils, to whom the final decision in these 
cases is usually entrusted, can be answered 
only after study of local conditions. There 
are already in existence, however, ingenious 
solutions by American architects of the 
problem of finding room for fountains in 
crowded streets. Dignified schemes have 
■Continued from the April and May numbers of House and 
Garden. 
also been carried out when the available space 
was less limited. Yet what has been accom¬ 
plished seems little enough, beside the oppor¬ 
tunities that beckon to the enthusiastic de¬ 
signer. Natural facilities, as a stream or a 
ravine passing through a town, are of course 
highly prized, but they are only occasional ; 
such landscape materials as the cliff and river 
at Salzburg, Austria, referred to in the May 
number of House and Garden, or the deep 
clefts that intersect the town of Ithaca, N. Y., 
are to be taken as especial gifts of the gods 
that preside over municipal architecture, and 
valued accordingly. Usually, however, the 
problem offered is that of turning to account 
some space or 
niche that may 
be wrested from 
the traffic o f 
busy thorough¬ 
fares. It is often 
physically pos¬ 
sible to squeeze 
a fountain into 
a given site, but 
to make it seem 
an integral part 
of the setting, 
coo rdinating 
with existing 
factors instead 
of being neu¬ 
tralized by 
them—this i s 
quite another 
matter. 
As one be¬ 
gins to explore the subject, he finds two 
circumstances favorable to the increased em¬ 
ployment of street fountains as decorative 
elements of American cities. First, the 
interest in municipal art is greater now 
than ever before, and the improvement 
of the outward aspect of established com¬ 
munities is being studied systematically by 
organizations of experts and laymen. Second, 
local architects have kept in advance of these 
movements, and have in some cases already 
investigated the opportunities for street 
fountains, their placing and their design. 
When the public has become more familiar 
with the scope and feasibility of such orna¬ 
ments, there will be found no lack of men 
WALL FOUNTAIN IN THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO, ROME 
417 
