The Stravinsky Fountain
Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle (Tinguely 1925 to 1991; Saint Phalle 1930 to 2002) · 1983
In the square between the Centre Pompidou and the church of Saint Merri, sixteen sculptures splash, spin and squirt water in a shallow black basin. A pair of bright red lips spouts a jet, a treble clef turns, a firebird in rainbow colours flaps, a spiral spins and a mechanical elephant sprays passers by. Each sculpture answers to a work by the composer Igor Stravinsky, whose name the square carries: the Firebird, the Rite of Spring, Ragtime, the Nightingale and so on. It is one of the most loved pieces of public art in Paris, and children and office workers alike sit on its edge at lunchtime.
The fountain is a marriage of two artists and two temperaments. Jean Tinguely, the Swiss sculptor of junk machines, made the black steel mechanisms that clank and turn, all bare wheels and pipes. His partner Niki de Saint Phalle, famous for her voluptuous painted Nanas, made the coloured figures in polyester resin, glossy and cartoon bright. Look at how the two languages sit side by side: the dark machinery seems to drive the colour, and the colour seems to mock the machinery. The whole thing was commissioned by the city and the state and inaugurated in 1983, with the music institute IRCAM directly beneath it.
The fountain has been restored several times, and its pumps and sculptures suffer from age and from the affection of the crowds, so a few pieces are sometimes still or under repair. It lies outside the Centre Pompidou building and remains accessible during the renovation, which makes it the one part of the site you can still enjoy exactly as it was. Come in warm weather when the water is running and the reflections from the church windows play across the basin.
Did You Know? The red lips spouting water are a Saint Phalle homage to Stravinsky's Ragtime, and they are the most photographed sculpture in the fountain.
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