{"id":41322,"date":"2025-11-06T20:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T20:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/41322\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T20:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T20:31:12","slug":"san-francisco-arts-commission-votes-to-dismantle-vaillancourt-fountain-the-art-newspaper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/41322\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Arts Commission votes to dismantle Vaillancourt Fountain – The Art Newspaper"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an eight-to-five vote on Monday (3 November), the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) voted to disassemble Armand Vaillancourt\u2019s namesake fountain.<\/p>\n

Two days prior, the San Francisco Chronicle reported<\/a> that San Francisco Recreation and Park Department (RPD) officials stated the fountain posed an \u201can immediate and serious hazard\u201d and would propose dismantling the monumental fountain and storing it for up to three years, at a cost of $4.4m. The cost is around $2m more than what RPD officials estimated it might cost to demolish the fountain.<\/p>\n

SFAC\u2019s decision comes just days after the San Francisco Planning Department determined that the fountain<\/a>, which was built by Vaillancourt as the main attraction of Embarcadero Plaza in 1971, was a historic resource eligible for preservation<\/a> under the National Register of Historic Places.<\/p>\n

Many members of the public who spoke at Monday\u2019s SFAC meeting supported preserving the monument and keeping it in the plaza. Those who supported its removal often voiced concerns over public safety and health risks.<\/p>\n

Eoanna Goodwin, the RPD project manager responsible for the Embarcadero Plaza redevelopment, opened the SFAC meeting by describing the alleged safety hazards and health concerns posed by the monument in its current state. She said dismantling the fountain was a \u201cnecessary step to protect the public\u201d.<\/p>\n

A report commissioned by RPD earlier this year revealed traces of lead and asbestos in the structure, and further indicated aspects of the structure were either not up to code or merited strengthening. But that report, by the architecture firm Page & Turnbull, did not advocate disassembly or demolition<\/a> of the fountain, suggesting remediation instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cHundreds of thousands of San Francisco residents live and work in structures at risk of collapse during an earthquake, and are potentially exposed to lead and asbestos on a regular basis,\u201d Bob Pullman, a board member of the Northern California chapter of Docomomo US, a preservation organisation, told the Arts Commission during Monday\u2019s meeting. \u201cNo San Francisco agency has declared these conditions as representing a safety emergency [\u2026] the city cannot have it both ways. Either we have an unprecedented public health crisis affecting billions of dollars in buildings and hundreds of thousands of people, or the city is constructing an artificial emergency to expedite a park renovation project to avoid its own legal responsibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrew Sullivan, a local landscape architect who worked with Lawrence Halprin, the designer of Embarcadero Plaza, argued that the entire process had been \u201cdisingenuous from the beginning\u201d. He added, during the public comment section of the meeting: \u201cWhenever there\u2019s been discussion of national registry designation, all of a sudden there\u2019s a new emergency and the fountain has to be removed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The arts commission\u2019s vice-president Janine Shiota and commissioner JD Beltran both said they were casting \u201cpainful\u201d votes in support of the motion to dismantle Vaillancourt Fountain. Prior to taking the official vote, several commissioners had sought to abstain but were ultimately compelled to take a position on the matter.<\/p>\n

Asked if the public will be permitted to raise funds for the fountain\u2019s restoration and potential rehabilitation, and whether the city would assist members of the public interested in doing so, Coma Te, SFAC\u2019s director of communications, tells The Art Newspaper that the commission \u201cwill take no further action until the fountain has been removed and subjected to further study\u201d.<\/p>\n

The property management company BXP has been leading a public-private partnership to redevelop Embarcadero Plaza, where Vaillancourt Fountain sits. The company\u2019s plan proposes combining two separate public spaces\u2014Embarcadero Plaza and the adjacent Sue Bierman Park\u2014into a single multi-use space. Vaillancourt\u2019s fountain has not had water running through it since June 2024 and has been fenced off from the public since 9 June of this year.<\/p>\n

Whether there is any recourse for Vaillancourt and his representatives is unclear. In September the Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois artist had sent municipal officials in San Francisco a cease-and-desist letter<\/a> to block what appeared to be the sculpture\u2019s imminent destruction. Monday\u2019s motion allows for action to be taken within 90 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cSan Francisco public art was not on the agenda\u201d during Monday\u2019s meeting, Jack McCarthy, a board member of Docomomo US\u2019s Northern California chapter, told The Art Newspaper in a statement. \u201cInstead, the Arts Commission heard a narrative curated by [RPD] based on their non-expert interpretation of an engineering report and a visual assessment by the Department of Building Inspection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charles A. Birnbaum, the president and chief executive of The Cultural Landscape Foundation, an education and advocacy organisation, told The Art Newspaper in a statement: \u201cFor years the commission deliberately decided not to properly maintain the artwork and now they\u2019ve voted to pardon and absolve themselves, and by extension the Recreation and Park Department, for their poor stewardship decisions.\u201d He added: \u201cUnfortunately, this is part of a broad and dangerous national trend.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an eight-to-five vote on Monday (3 November), the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) voted to disassemble Armand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[12195,5392,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-41322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-museums-heritage","9":"tag-public-art","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","12":"tag-san-francisco-news","13":"tag-sf","14":"tag-sf-headlines","15":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}