The enormous concrete fountain at Embarcadero Plaza is coming down.
The San Francisco Arts Commission board of directors voted 8 to 5 Monday to disassemble the brutalist tangle of rough concrete chutes known as the Vaillancourt Fountain and store the pieces, making way for a long-planned redevelopment of the Embarcadero.
Recreation and Parks Department project manager Eoanna Goodwin said in a presentation that it is necessary to remove the structure because it has fallen into disrepair and poses a safety hazard. Goodwin said the department expects to spend about $4.4 million on hiring a disassembly consultant, taking the fountain apart, and storing the pieces for three years.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation, a nonprofit that has fought to preserve the monument, disputed that there is an immediate safety risk in an article (opens in new tab) published Sunday, and its president condemned the commission’s vote.
“For years, the [Arts] Commission deliberately decided not to properly maintain the artwork and now they’ve voted to pardon and absolve themselves, and by extension the Recreation and Parks Department, for their poor stewardship decisions,” President Charles Birnbaum said in a statement.
Rec and Parks dismissed the foundation’s claims that there is no immediate safety risk.
“People are regularly breaching the fence, cutting through the mesh, and climbing into and inside of the 10-ton corroded arms to commit vandalism, and even to sleep inside the fountain’s structure, which independent engineers and [the Department of Building Inspection] have confirmed are at risk of collapse,” Rec and Parks spokesperson Tamara Aparton said via email. “Combined with asbestos and lead hazards, it’s harder to imagine a clearer public safety issue.”
Subscribe to The Daily
Because “I saw a TikTok” doesn’t always cut it. Dozens of stories, daily.
Dozens of residents commented at the commission meeting; some argued that the fountain is an obstacle to a reimagined Embarcadero, and others urged the directors not to destroy history.
Those in favor of tearing down the fountain cited safety concerns, the state of disrepair, and the importance of embracing the future. Those opposed — including the granddaughter of Armand Vaillancourt, who designed the fountain in 1971 — said the structure is an icon that does not prevent the city from redeveloping the plaza.
“Don’t villainize the Vaillancourt Fountain,” art historian Ted Barrow said. “The Ferry Building was reinvented without erasing its history. We can do the same here.”
For more than a year, the city has implied its intent to dismantle the monument to San Francisco’s modernist history; conspicuously absent from early designs for the plaza’s redevelopment were renderings of the 710-ton sculpture. But this summer, Rec and Parks chief Phil Ginsburg, the highest-ranking official to weigh in, formally requested its removal, citing safety risks and prohibitive maintenance costs.
“What was once a statement piece of urban renewal now severely limits our ability to create a safe, functional, and future-ready civic space,” Ginsburg’s Aug. 18 letter (opens in new tab) states. “The design cannot meet community needs or project goals while retaining the fountain in place.”
What the city calls a “design constraint,” preservationists regard as a cultural touchstone.
The fountain’s historical significance transcends commentary on modernism. The kinky sculpture and the plaza it occupies are hallowed ground (opens in new tab) in the city’s world-renowned skateboarding scene. The sculpture has made hundreds of cameos in skate videos since the 1980s — a backdrop for luminaries including Mark Gonzales, Mike Carroll, Lavar McBride, and Henry Sanchez.
Vaillancourt’s fountain received another layer of immortality last year on the cover of Thrasher Magazine (opens in new tab), with skater Ducky Kovacs (opens in new tab) rolling off it into the questionable water below.
Barrow said there’s a silver lining to the city’s decision to remove the fountain.
“By taking it apart, moving it to a warehouse, and hiring the experts that they claim will accurately assess the damage and what repairs need to be done, they’ve also provided an opportunity for private entities to raise enough money to have the fountain properly reinforced, restored, preserved, and reinstalled,” the historian said.