Modern Garden Decor: Garden Fountains and their Beginnings
Modern Garden Decor: Garden Fountains and their Beginnings The incredible architecture of a fountain allows it to provide clean water or shoot water high into air for dramatic effect and it can also serve as an excellent design feature to complement your home. From the onset, outdoor fountains were simply there to serve as functional elements. Water fountains were connected to a spring or aqueduct to provide potable water as well as bathing water for cities, townships and villages. Up to the late nineteenth century, water fountains had to be near an aqueduct or reservoir and higher than the fountain so that gravity could make the water move down or jet high into the air. Serving as an element of adornment and celebration, fountains also supplied clean, fresh drinking water. Animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks were often used by Romans to beautify their fountains. During the Middle Ages, Muslim and Moorish garden planners included fountains to create mini depictions of the gardens of paradise. King Louis XIV of France wanted to illustrate his superiority over nature by including fountains in the Gardens of Versailles. To mark the entryway of the restored Roman aqueducts, the Popes of the 17th and 18th centuries commissioned the construction of baroque style fountains in the spot where the aqueducts entered the city of Rome
Indoor plumbing became the main source of water by the end of the 19th century thereby limiting urban fountains to mere decorative elements. Gravity was substituted by mechanical pumps in order to enable fountains to bring in clean water and allow for amazing water displays.
Nowadays, fountains decorate public spaces and are used to recognize individuals or events and fill recreational and entertainment needs.
The Dispersion of Outdoor Fountain Design Knowledge
The Dispersion of Outdoor Fountain Design Knowledge Spreading practical hydraulic knowledge and water fountain design ideas all through Europe was accomplished with the written papers and illustrated books of the time.
An un-named French water feature engineer was an internationally renowned hydraulic pioneer in the later part of the 1500's. His know-how in making gardens and grottoes with built-in and imaginative water fountains began in Italy and with mandates in Brussels, London and Germany. He wrote a book titled “The Principles of Moving Forces” towards the conclusion of his lifetime while in France that turned into the fundamental book on hydraulic technology and engineering. Replacing principal hydraulic breakthroughs of classical antiquity, the publication also highlights contemporary hydraulic technologies. The water screw, a technical method to move water, and devised by Archimedes, was featured in the book. An beautiful spring with sunlight heating the water in two containers hidden in an nearby room was displayed in one illustration. The end result: the fountain is stimulated by the hot liquid expanding and ascending up the pipelines. Garden ponds as well as pumps, water wheels, and water feature designs are included in the book.