Every Place Has a Story

Wanted! Home for Centennial Fountain Sculpture

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The missing centennial fountain
The Centennial Fountain outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, ca. 2014. Photo courtesy Ben Larsson

Wanted! The Provincial government is looking for a home for several tons of black marble, currently residing in a Coquitlam storage facility.

The marble is about 12 feet high and roughly six feet wide, and that’s all there is left from Vancouver’s Centennial fountain that first sat outside the former Vancouver courthouse in 1966. It was turned off in 2014 after a leak was found in the VAG’s storage area and hauled away in 2017.

The missing centennial fountain
The Centennial fountain’s sculpture component is in storage in a government facility. Photo courtesy Ben Larsson
Designed by Robert Savery:

The Centennial fountain was designed by Robert Savery, a landscape gardener and provincial government employee. It had blue and green mosaic tiles with colours that changed at night and pumped out over 1.3 million litres of water an hour through 245 brass sprinkler heads.

This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History.

From the outset the fountain was controversial, and not because of its colonial origins. The local artistic community said the government should keep out of the fountain business and put all public art to a competition. “[Government] employees aren’t qualified to design works of art or sculpture. They are incompetent in these fields of art,” said Frank Low-Beer, chair of the community arts council committee.

the Centennial fountain
The Centennial Fountain replaced Charles Marega’s from 1912. His fountain languished in storage until 1983 when the VAG moved into the building, and it was installed at the Hornby Street side.
Alex Von Svoboda:

In the centre of the fountain stood a marble sculpture designed by artist Alex von Svoboda, reputedly an Austrian count who immigrated to Toronto after World War 11.

Over the next five decades, the fountain endured visits from canoeists, waders and pranksters with soapsuds. It was the meeting place and rallying point for dozens of public demonstrations including Grey Cup rioters and anti-war protesters in the 1960s, 4/20 cannabis smoke-ins and the tent city of Occupy Vancouver in 2011.

Ben Larsson of the provincial government’s asset management branch, has been the sculpture’s reluctant custodian for the past six years. He needs the space and if he doesn’t find a home for it soon, it will be carted off and demolished.

The Centennial Fountain
The Centennial fountain was a $45,000 gift from the Province to the City of Vancouver in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the colonial union of Vancouver Island and the mainland. Courtesy Vancouver Archives, 1969
Expensive to fix:

Ben’s a nice guy, but he’s not the world’s best salesperson. He says the sculpture is cracked and in two pieces. An informal verbal assessment conducted by staff six years ago estimated the cost to fix the rock would be $250,000. Add another twenty-five grand to move it, he says.

“Short of sticking it out in a forest on its own, there’s no place where we can store it and no funds to pay for it,” says Ben. “The amount of money that is required to restore and relocate this thing is astronomical and there’s not a lot of public appetite for that.”

Here’s the thing. If nobody else is willing to step up, please drop the marble sculpture on my front lawn. Forget the $250,000, I’ll make do with a tube of Super Glue and some duct tape.

 

Centennial Fountain
Centennial Fountain, courtesy vancouverfountains.com

Copies of my new book, Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck, are now available to preorder through my publisher Arsenal Pulp Press, from online retailers, and through independent bookstores across Canada

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.

Our Missing Heritage: The Centennial Fountain

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BC Centennial Fountain, 1969. Vancouver Archives 780-62

In 2014, the Centennial fountain that sat outside the former Vancouver courthouse was removed after nearly half a century. It had been turned off the year before after a leak was found in the Vancouver Art Gallery’s storage area. While the new, sterile looking plaza hasn’t been wholeheartedly embraced, neither was the fountain when it was designed by Robert Savery, a landscape gardener employed by the provincial government in 1966.

This story is from Vancouver Exposed: Searching for the City’s Hidden History.

Murals on hoarding around the VAG building, April 1966. Vancouver Archives
We had a Paint-in:

Vancouver turned 80 on April 6, 1966 and Mayor Bill Rathie held a paint-in. The event was a huge success and included over 100 art students who had signed up and been assigned spots along the hoarding. The art stayed up until the fountain was revealed the following December.

The fountainless public space in front of the VAG in 2020. Eve Lazarus photo
The Big Reveal:

The Centennial fountain was a $45,000 gift to the City of Vancouver. It featured a 4.8 metre marble sculpture designed by artist Alex von Svoboda, blue and green mosaic tiles with colours that changed at night, and pumped out over 1.3 million litres of water an hour. The local artistic community were outraged and said the government should keep out of the fountain business and put all public art to a competition. “[Government] employees aren’t qualified to design works of art or sculpture. They are incompetent in these fields of art,” said Frank Low-Beer, chair of the community arts council committee.

They had a point, but I loved that fountain anyway.

The Centennial Fountain with view of the missing Devonshire Hotel and Georgia Medical and Dental Building. Vancouver Archives, 1976
The Fountain:

Over the next 48 years, the fountain endured visits from canoeists, waders and pranksters with soapsuds. It was the meeting place and rallying point for dozens of public demonstrations including Grey Cup rioters and anti-war protesters in the 1960s, 4/20 cannabis smoke-ins and the tent city of Occupy Vancouver in 2011.

The Centennial Fountain replaced Charles Marega’s from 1912. His fountain languished in storage until 1983 when the VAG moved into the building, and it was installed at the Hornby Street side.

The original Charles Marega fountain from 1912 sits at the Hornby Street side of the building. Eve Lazarus photo, 2020

May be there’s hope for a reappearance of Savery’s 1966 fountain.

© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, content copyright Eve Lazarus.