There are a few hundred “famous fountains” that have transcended being local landmarks and have become part of our global pop culture. They are on the covers of travel books, in movies, people make pilgrimages to them, their symbolism is often key to the branding of their cities. Some of the fountains are big and [...]

I took these photos of Villa d’Este in 2002, when I was in Italy for the Landscapes of Water conference in Barri. Villa d’Este, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is a great hillside water estate, built between 1550-1572 in Tivoli, near Rome. The estate was commissioned by Cardinal d’Este. Pirro Ligorio and Alberto Galvari designed [...]

What is Fountain Friday? Starting in 2010, every Friday I am going to be blogging about a different historic fountain or water feature. I want to skip around the world and through time to look at how people have used water features as social, economic, environmental and artistic engines. I am kicking off the series [...]