Small Fountain, Maguire Gardens

I passed a pleasant lunch hour the other day near the small fountain in Maguire Gardens, just west of the Central Library in downtown Los Angeles.

Maguire Gardens, completed in 1993, has some of the most interesting fountains in the city, but the small fountain on the Fifth Street side probably gets the least notice. It is small (just 16 feet in diameter) and low (water bubbles up from knee-high porcelain blocks). Cafe Pinot blocks the fountain from view as you descend the Library’s front steps. A drift of shade trees makes it difficult to spot from other vantage points. The fountain’s location near the northern edge of the garden means that those who take the main path through the Garden from Flower Street are apt to miss it altogether.


Once found, however, it is a pleasure. What at first glance seems modest and simple, turns out to be quite different – this small fountain exhibits a beguiling complexity of pattern, color and shape.

Complexity is perhaps to be expected in a piece created through the collaboration of two artists. The round pool was designed by Laddie John Dill. The bed resembles the shutter of a camera, with pallets fanning out at oblique angles, sitting one atop another. They rise like terraces, creating a pool that goes from deep to shallow. Each pallet is a composite of angular stone fragments, much like a flagstone path. The fragments vary in color, creating something of a harlequin effect, but with muted tones – rust, celery, copper, light shades of gray and brown.

The water feature – a series of porcelain space-figure blocks arrayed around a curved sheet of colored glass – was created by Mineo Mizuno. It, too, repeats the terrace effect, with the earth-toned cylinders and prisms rising from low to high. The glass wave has an aqua hue and projects outward from the tallest block.



This is a fountain without jets or spray. Water bubbles gently from the top of each block and flows quietly down the glistening porcelain sides into the pool. The effect is that of a small brook with a calming babble.

The fountain occupies the center of a small plaza surrounded by low walls that invite sitting. The shade trees don't completely shut out the sound of city buses as they cross Flower and grind their way up Fifth Street to the overpass that crosses the Harbor Freeway, but they help. You know you’re still in the city, but the fountain’s murmur and the dappled light take the edge off. This is a fine place for a moment’s respite in a busy day.