The Stravinsky Fountain, Paris

I have quite a few favorite places in Paris, but I think the Stravinsky Fountain is the only one I’ve gotten to on every visit. I never get tired of it, or of watching children marvel at it, or of the whole idea of this wonderful whimsical place, sandwiched between a startllngly modern museum and a “gothic flamboyant” church.

The fountain is a large shallow pool, with figures representing Igor Stravinsky’s music, with such figures as the Firebird, the Nightingale, the Key of G, and more. They’re by Jean Tinguely (the black pieces) and his wife Niki de Saint Phalle (the brightly-colored ones). Tinguely, a Swiss, was chosen to create the fountain in 1978 as part of a plan to create seven new “contemporary” fountains in Paris.

It was Tinguely, part-way through the construction, who suggested adding his wife’s pieces to the design, over the objections of some officials. He didn’t get his way on all counts, though; he asked that the water not be treated, which would have allowed moss to grow, eventually changing the statues. Didn’t happen.

The Stravinsky connection is no accident. The arrival of the Centre Pompidou drew other cultural institutions to the area, including a home for IRCAM, the music/acoustics institute led by conductor and musicologist Pierre Boulez. The fountain is actually built onto the roof of the Institute’s underground offices and studios. That’s why it is shallow, and the sculptures are all built of lightweight materials.

Here’s Tinguely’s description of his goal for the fountain: “I wanted [the fountain] to have charm, with the colors of Niki, the movement of the water, and a certain attachment of the heart that I gave to my sculptures. I didn’t want artifices of color in the California style, with jets of water that were electronically controlled, things mysterious and bizarre. I wanted sculptures like street performers, a little bit like a circus, which was at the heart of Stravinsky’s style itself when in 1914 he had his first encounter with jazz, thanks to the recordings which Ernest Answermet brought from the United States, or when he wrote an homage to a circus elephant, all made up in colors, which he saw in a circus in Evian or Lausanne.” I think he hit his mark!

On one end, its neighbor is the Beaubourg, the Centre Pompidou, the huge museum complex built near one end of the former Les Halles markets. No, it’s not under construction in this photo; the design, by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers, turns the building “inside out” with mechanicals and stairways on the outside.

It’s home to many events, including the national museum of modern art, a large public library, and more. Those wooden sheds aren’t construction, either. They are part of an artwork that was up in 2010. While quite a few visitors found them strange or ugly, they were quite popular with birds!

Saint-Merri, at the other end of the fountain, is a 16th-century church with an active parish and community center and home to the Academie Vocale de Paris, which performs in the church regularly.

Children aren’t the only ones who like to sit by the fountain…

In 2012, on a crowded Christmas visit to Paris, the only time we found to visit the fountain was after a late-afternoon visit to a Dali exhibition at the Pompidou. More satisfying than the exhibit, frankly, was the chance to see the museum (above) and the fountian (below) in a whole new light. The digital images, taken without flash, highlight different aspects of the fountain and church, depending on how much light struck different areas.

Saint-Merri takes on a ghostly aspect, seeming almost to rise out of the darkened fountain. In the next two images, a juxtaposition of the crest of the Firebird with the large graffiti-style painting on the wall create an interesting, if unintended picture, with the crest becoming a hand covering a gasp.

And then the lips (L’Amour) come to the fore, and the Key of G, and the elephant, each with a different view of the “supporting cast.”

And then the church and painting again, suggesting some profound meaning that is almost certainly not there…or is it? Is anything truly accidental?

And a look back to the Centre Pompidou, and two more views of the Tinguely works. There are a few more images in the slide set at the bottom.

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