Contemporary Garden Decor: Large Outdoor Water Fountains and their Roots
Contemporary Garden Decor: Large Outdoor Water Fountains and their Roots 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 enhance your home.
Pure functionality was the original purpose of fountains. People in cities, towns and villages received their drinking water, as well as water to bathe and wash, from aqueducts or springs in the area. 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. Designers thought of fountains as amazing additions to a living space, however, the fountains also served to provide clean water and honor the artist responsible for building it. Roman fountains often depicted images of animals or heroes made of bronze or stone masks. Muslims and Moorish garden designers of the Middle Ages included fountains to re-create smaller models of the gardens of paradise. The fountains seen in the Gardens of Versailles were intended to show the power over nature held by King Louis XIV of France. 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 key 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 adorn public areas and are used to honor individuals or events and fill recreational and entertainment needs.
How Mechanical Designs of Fountains Spread
How Mechanical Designs of Fountains Spread Throughout the European countries, the chief means of dissiminating practical hydraulic information and fountain design suggestions were the published pamphlets and illustrated books of the time, which contributed to the development of scientific innovation. In the late 1500's, a French water fountain architect (whose name has been lost) was the internationally recognized hydraulics innovator. With Royal mandates in Brussels, London and Germany, he started his career in Italy, developing know-how in garden design and grottoes with built-in and clever water features. In France, towards the closure of his lifetime, he penned “The Principle of Moving Forces”, a publication that became the primary text on hydraulic technology and engineering.
Explaining contemporary hydraulic technologies, the publication also modernized key hydraulic developments of classical antiquity. Prominent among these works were those of Archimedes, the inventor of the water screw, a mechanized means of transferring water. Natural light warmed the water in a pair of hidden containers adjoining to the beautiful water feature were shown in an illustration. What occurs is the heated water expanded, goes up and locks up the pipes leading to the water feature, and thus leading to stimulation. The book additionally mentions garden ponds, water wheels, water feature creations.