Exposed to the elements, public—and geese: the complex conservation of outdoor art

As examples show, once civic projects are completed, there can be issues of neglect. In San Francisco, a 1971 Brutalist fountain by Armand Vaillancourt is at risk of being destroyed due to a redevelopment plan. “It wasn’t maintained,” says Charles A. Birnbaum, the president and chief executive of the Cultural Landscape Foundation. “We wrote about this more than a decade ago.”