New Video Highlights History and Significance of the Vaillancourt Fountain
Orignally featured in The Cultural Landscape Foundation’s (TCLF) report and corresponding traveling photographic exhibition, Landslide 2016: The Landscape of Lawrence Halprin, San Francisco’s Embarcadero Plaza and its signature Vaillancourt Fountain is slated for demolition, to be replaced with a five acre park funded through a public-private partnership. Designed by landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, the Modernist plaza (1972) features an irregularly shaped expanse of red brick pavers and is reminiscent of Siena, Italy’s Piazza del Campo, Madrid, Spain’s Plaza Mayor square, and Mexico City, Mexico’s El Zócalo (officially known as Plaza de la Constitución). Described by Halprin as a “total environment in which all the elements working together create a place for participation,” he and Canadian artist Armand Vaillancourt created the 40-foot-tall fountain featuring a series of angular square tubes created in response to the Embarcadero Freeway, an elevated roadway that wrapped around the plaza. Despite the site’s significance, its rehabilitation is not listed as an option on the city’s website and in materials supplied during community meetings.
In March 2025 TCLF urged city officials to consider listing the plaza and fountain in the National Register of Historic Places, and asked the site’s supporters to do the same. Currently none of Halprin’s pioneering designs in the Bay Area, where he spent his six-decade-long career, have been nationally designated, while five projects in different parts of the country are listed in the National Register.
On May 20, 2025, the artist’s son, Alexis Vaillancourt unveiled on You Tube a richly illustrated 6:58-minute video advocating for the artworks preservation and protection featuring historic and contemporary interviews with his father, the artist Armand Vaillancourt, illustrated with historic video segments and images, highlighting the design and cultural significance of the fountain. The documentary style video reveals that the artist resided in San Francisco from 1967 to 1971 to oversee the fountain’s construction, during which time he offered his studio as a “safe haven” for Native American demonstrators associated with the occupation of Alcatraz Island (1969-1971). Vaillancourt conceived the fountain as both an artistic and political gesture and at the dedication painted “Quebec Libre” (Free Quebec) on its surface—a gesture “rooted in his political conviction and in a desire for freedom both personal and collective.”
Since its creation the fountain has served as a witness to history, been embraced by disparate groups, including skateboarders and art experts, and withstood the 7.7 earthquake of 1989; it is “layered with meaning.” The narrative proclaims that the effort to rehabilitate the fountain “is not just about preserving a structure, it’s about protecting a place where history, community, and imagination come together,” and that it’s “a space that has always welcomed the unexpected. It speaks of resilience, creativity, and shared memory. It’s not a relic, it’s alive….and like the city it calls home it deserves to grow, not disappear.”
The video concludes by inviting observers to get engaged by joining the Foundation Armand Vaillancourt and the Regroupement des Artistes en Arts Visuels du Québec (RAAV) by signing the petition urging city officials to rehabilitate the Vaillancourt Fountain.
Sign the Change.org petition here.
