Journal
Water features & fountains
During the New York city drought of 1964, when New Yorkers were forced to use water from the Hudson River, Tiffany’s window designer Gene Moore, unveiled a fountain in one of the store’s windows. The fountain was hung with diamonds and, what was even more exuberant, it ran with what looked like water. A note, however, written on a Tiffany’s card sat in the corner of the window and read: “This is not New York’s precious water. This is gin.”
The difficulty with water features is that the time of year when they are most desirable and are needed to be fully functional is also the time of year when water becomes a scarce commodity and their practicality becomes cause for debate. Public fountains in Barcelona were turned off last summer as Spain experienced its worst drought in 60 years and as Britain faces what the Environment Agency claims “could be one of the most serious droughts to affect the south east of England in the last 100 years”, water features look set to be the first taps turned off. Discuss this article
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