Find Tranquility with Outdoor Water Features

The Father Of Rome's Garden Fountain Design
The Father Of Rome's Garden Fountain Design In Rome’s city center, there are many easily recognized water features. One of the most distinguished sculptors and designers of the 17th century, Gian Lorenzo Bernini designed, created and constructed nearly all of them.
The Origins Of Garden Fountains
The Origins Of Garden Fountains A fountain, an amazing piece of engineering, not only supplies drinking water as it pours into a basin, it can also launch water high into the air for an extraordinary effect.The primary purpose of a fountain was originally strictly practical. Residents of cities, townships and small towns utilized them as a source of drinking water and a place to wash, which meant that fountains had to be linked to nearby aqueduct or spring. Up until the nineteenth, fountains had to be more elevated and closer to a water supply, including aqueducts and reservoirs, in order to benefit from gravity which fed the fountains. Fountains were an optimal source of water, and also served to adorn living areas and memorialize the designer. Animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks were often used by Romans to decorate their fountains. To replicate the gardens of paradise, Muslim and Moorish garden planners of the Middle Ages added fountains to their designs. The fountains found in the Gardens of Versailles were supposed to show the power over nature held by King Louis XIV of France. The Romans of the 17th and 18th centuries created baroque decorative fountains to glorify the Popes who commissioned them as well as to mark the spot where the restored Roman aqueducts entered the city.
Since indoor plumbing became the standard of the day for clean, drinking water, by the end of the 19th century urban fountains were no longer needed for this purpose and they became purely ornamental. Fountains using mechanical pumps instead of gravity allowed fountains to provide recycled water into living spaces as well as create special water effects.
Modern-day fountains serve mostly as decoration for open spaces, to honor individuals or events, and enhance entertainment and recreational gatherings.