Think Rome's Fountains are Just for Display? Here is how Water Elicits Joy and Exhibits Elegance in Public Spaces
One of my favorite things to witness in a city is children playing in water within a public space. The sound of their laughter every time a jet of water randomly squirts up and fills their diapers. It immediately makes me want to jump right in with them. People are drawn to the energy of water in the public realm. It could be modest or grand in scale, but the display of water symbolizes life and renewal.
During graduate school I lived in Rome for four months. Of the public fountains in Rome, the Fontana di Trevi holds a special place in my heart. One of the most exciting aspects of the fountain is the effect it has on its audience. It is located at the junction of three roads. As you follow the streets toward Piazza Poli, the sound of flowing water and the crowd is barely audible. I personally love to approach the fountain from Via Delle Muratte (see vignette “A” in analysis drawing) . Your site line terminates on a typical Roman palazzo providing no indication of the piazza that opens up to the fountain. Along Via della Stamperia, our site line falls upon the ornate corinthian columns of Santi Vincenzo e Anastasio a Trevi, giving us clues as we approach the basin (see vignette “B” in analysis drawing). The entrance of the baroque church itself relates to the the piazza, indicating that the church was responding to an earlier, insufficiently dramatic fountain. The subtle transitions between sight and sound, and the tensions between formal and organic building patterns, have been dealt with so artfully that the drawing force of the Trevi is almost like the backstage managers of a well-done play. Everything holds itself together, and viewers sense this and feel satisfied by the enormous and compelling fountain before them. The drama as you approach this Baraoque masterpiece is jaw dropping. It’s virtually impossible to capture the entire fountain and piazza in one photograph, and while you are trying to do that you forget to spend time just taking it all in.
Rome is often compared to a palimpsest, a text made up of older, “invisible” texts scraped or washed off of durable parchment so that that page could be reused. The Fontana di Trevi is no exception. Given its grandeur, many credit its conception to Pietro da Cortona and Bernini, and the design and completion to architect and poet Nicola Salvi. However, the fountain was conjointly the solution to a hydraulic engineering problem. The Trevi Fountain sits at the end of the Acqua Vergine aqueduct, which is almost entirely underground. This aqueduct was brought to Rome by Marcus Agrippa from a spring roughly 20 km east of the city, to supply water to his public baths by the Pantheon in 19 B.C. In order to bring the water into the city, the engineers needed to create enough gravity flow resulting in a depressed water basin, while also creating enough pressure to enable a water spectacle. The aqueduct also feeds the fountains of Piazza Farnese, Piazza Spagna, and Piazza Navona. In The Architecture of Happiness, Alain de Botton tells us that people appreciate architecture that’s elegant, coherent and which indulges our human nature. Elegance in architecture often comes from making a difficult task appear simple. The Fontana di Trevi is an example of such elegance as it integrates architecture, city planning and engineering to resolve the arrival of water into the city.
The celebration of water within the public spaces of Rome was primarily an indication of wealth, luxury and civilization. As a result, water was supplied to the residents of Rome supporting public health. The bounty of water can be seen through 2,500 free flowing nasoni. The water is clean, fresh and publicly accessible. More whimsical drinking fountains are found on building walls throughout Rome. The majority of the public fountains in Rome are spraying recycled water, with the exception of the Fontana della Barcaccia terminating the Via de Condotti and the Spanish Steps within Piazza Spagna. This fountain was also designed by Bernini and always pulls a crowd. You can sit on the steps and take in the view and you can also lean forward to the half-sunken ship with water overflowing its sides and fill up your water bottle. Just as the Trevi, Bernini built this fountain to be slightly below street level due to the low water pressure from the aqueduct.
