The Vaillancourt fountain, an enormous concrete sculpture that has dominated Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco since the 1970s, met a surreal and fitting end when it burst into flames during its dismantling in early May. The city had voted to potentially replace it with an open, grassy park, a decision mourned by skateboarders who argued the city was losing an important piece of its skate culture and architectural heritage.
A Controversial Landmark
Designed by artist Armand Vaillancourt and built in 1971, the fountain was the dynamic centerpiece of a red-brick plaza that became the epicenter of San Francisco's skateboarding scene in the 1980s and 1990s. The fountain's proximity to EMB, the acronym for both the crew of skaters there and the Embarcadero location, elevated it from mere backdrop to landmark. Along with the Ferry Building, Vaillancourt's fountain was the beacon that drew skaters to the plaza, once the center of skateboarding's universe.
In recent years, the fountain became a touchstone for debates about the legacy of modernist spaces in the city. Adjacent property owners and San Francisco's parks department ran a campaign to condemn the fountain under an emergency injunction, claiming it was no longer functioning or safe. Others simply declared it an eyesore. Activists, skateboarders, and Vaillancourt himself argued the city should maintain and preserve the work for its cultural significance. Skateboarders showed up to community meetings, requested private chats with the parks department, and generated online petitions to try to save the fountain and plaza.
The Dismantling and Fire
After many debates, the San Francisco Arts Commission voted to decommission the fountain. It is currently being taken apart piece by piece at a cost of $4 million for storage and further assessment. As crews began to take it down, a spark from a torch-cutter likely ignited debris that had accumulated in one of the fountain's tubes, sending flames and smoke into the air over the structure that once pumped 30,000 gallons of water.
A Eulogy for a Unique Sculpture
Lawrence Halprin's Embarcadero Plaza and Vaillancourt's fountain were designed together as part of a dynamic vision of what San Francisco might be. The plaza and fountain boldly evoked medieval piazzas and baroque waterworks, encouraging immersive interaction. For skateboarders, the fountain was immediately recognizable; nothing else in the world looked like it. The best-known spots in skateboarding are often named after works of art nearby, and each plaza offered smooth surfaces and unexpected configurations that appealed specifically to skateboarders.
While eulogizing this fountain, it is important to clarify that it was never brutalist, as many critics have described it. The fountain's giant sculpted vermiculated patterns and oversized protuberances evoked travertine, harmonizing with the late-modernist cityscape. To call it brutalist flattens the textured and participatory aspects that made the plaza special.
The fire was quickly extinguished, and Vaillancourt's fountain will soon be gone. Many modernist projects for city centers have not aged well, but few sparked a paradigm shift in skateboarding like Embarcadero. The fire lit by that plaza still burns in the imagination, while cherished skate spots have become landmark destinations in cities other than San Francisco.
Ted Barrow PhD is an art historian, writer, curator, and lifelong skateboarder who lives in San Francisco. He hosts the YouTube series This Old Ledge for Thrasher magazine.
