The Daily Mall Reader

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Shaping Water into Art

TIME Magazine - Monday, Sep. 12, 1977

(Excerpt) A fantasia of fountains adorns Downtown, U.S.A.

Water. Shapeless in itself, it can take multitudinous shapes. Colorless in itself, it can produce iridescences beyond any artist's palette. Soundless and inert in itself, it can in action induce a sense of rushing speed and frenetic energy; in tranquillity, a sense of meditative peace. In the most bleak of concrete jungles, water is a hope and a memory, a green thought in an ungreen shade.

Ever since Moses struck the rock and brought forth water, it has been both a miracle and a counted blessing, one humanity has done nothing to deserve but cannot live without. And like all such blessings, people have been fiddling with it ever since, among other things to suit their convenience and enhance delight. At least as far back as Babylon, architects and engineers have tried to shape water into an art form.

Read the full article here.