BiblioVault - Books about Fountains

Chicago's Fabulous Fountains

Greg Borzo. Photographs by Julia Thiel. Foreword by Geoffrey Baer. Preface by Debra Shore.

Southern Illinois University Press, 2017

2018 IPPY Award Silver Medalist for Great Lakes Nonfiction
Winner, ISHS Annual Award for Other Publications, 2018

Most people do not realize it, but Chicago is home to many diverse, artistic, fascinating, and architecturally and historically important fountains. In this attractive volume, Greg Borzo reveals more than one hundred outdoor public fountains of Chicago with noteworthy, amusing, or surprising stories about these gems. Complementing Borzo’s engagingly written text are around one hundred beautiful fine-art color photos of the fountains, taken by photographer Julia Thiel for this book, and a smaller number of historical photos.

Greg Borzo begins by providing an overview of Chicago’s fountains and discussing the oldest ones, explaining who built them and why, how they survived as long as they have, and what they tell us about early Chicago. At the heart of the book are four thematic chapters on drinking fountains, iconic fountains, plaza fountains, and park and parkway fountains. Among the iconic fountains described are Buckingham (in Grant Park), Crown (in Millennium Park), Centennial (with its water cannon shooting over the Chicago River), and two fountains designed by famed sculptor Lorado Taft (Time and Great Lakes). Plazas all around Chicago—in the neighborhoods as well as downtown—have fountains that anchor communities or enhance the skyscrapers they adorn. Also presented are the fountains in Chicago’s parks, some designed by renowned artists and many often overlooked or taken for granted. A chapter on the self-proclaimed City of Fountains, Kansas City, Missouri, shows how Chicago’s city planners could raise public awareness and funding for the care and preservation of these important landmarks. Also covered are a brief period of fountain building and rehabbing (1997–2002) that vastly enriched the city; fountains that no longer exist; and proposed Chicago fountains that were never built, as well as the future of fountain design.

A beautiful photography book and a guide to the city’s many fountains, Chicago’s Fabulous Fountains also provides fascinating histories and behind-the-scenes stories of these underappreciated artistic and architectural treasures of the Windy City.

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Fountains, Statues, and Flowers

Studies in Italian Gardens of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Elizabeth Blair MacDougall

Harvard University Press, 1994

The essays in this volume focus on the different aspects of Italian gardens of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This volume is divided into two parts, with the first part concentrating on the decorations in Roman gardens of the sixteenth centuries, especially the fountains and statue collections, their iconographic programs, and their relationship to contemporary and ancient literature.

The second half of the volume considers two particular sites. The first, a Savoy duke’s villa, is considered through the history of its construction and its relationship to contemporary festivity architecture. The second essay considers a secret garden at the Palazzo Barberini in the 1630s. Also included are illustrations and text from three Barberini manuscripts documenting the plants used in this garden.

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Taking the Waters in Texas

Springs, Spas, and Fountains of Youth

By Janet Mace Valenza

University of Texas Press, 2000

"It is well known that Southern Texas possesses a greater variety of Mineral Waters than any other country on the globe" enthused a promotion for one of Texas' many watering spas of the nineteenth century. Though most are closed and nearly forgotten today, Texas spas and resorts once drew thousands of visitors from across the country, seeking healing of body and spirit in the rejuvenating mineral waters.

This book offers the first comprehensive history of Texas' healing springs. Janet Valenza tracks the rise, popularity, and decline of the "water cure" from the 1830s to the present day. She follows the development of major spas and resorts, such as Mineral Wells and Indian Hot Springs near El Paso, as well as of smaller, family-run springs. She also describes how mineral waters influenced patterns of settlement, transportation routes, commerce, and people's attitudes toward the land. Period photos and quotes from those seeking cures offer vivid glimpses into the daily life at the springs, which Valenza lists and describes county-by-county in the appendix.

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