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Published: September 8th 2008
If Dr. Seuss and Tim Burton got together to make a fountain, they would have come up with this one. The Igor Stravinsky fountain was actually designed by Jean Tinguely and Niki St. Phalle, but who's heard of them? I have some pictures that I'll put in later. The fountain consists of a sweeping, shallow pool, with a circus of sculptures spitting out water from various orifices. Some of the hilights include a pair of bright red cartoon lips (the water more dribbled out of that one), a grinning skull atop a wiry structure, and something ressembling a sea creature, (maybe a crab or manta ray?) with a shovel like body, and flailing hoses spouting water. All the scultpures were spinning lethargically, dispersing their contribution to the pool below. It was awesome!! If it weren't for all the smoking Spanish tourists (who seem to have no sense of personal space) I could have stayed there all day.
This fountain was the perfect introduction to the main event, the Centre Georges Pompidou. Always a museum I was fascinated with in High School French class, based solely on the sound of it's name.
Pompidou. It's impossible to say this without an exaggerated French
accent. This building created a furor when it was erected due to the radical design, referred to by some as "guts out". Blue, red and yellow pipes intersected glass elevators and escalators encompassed in clear tubes. Mainly a museum for Modern art, it housed some of my all time favorites, including Magritte's painting with the feet-shoes...I forget what it's called. I wanted to reach out and lovingly stroke the canvas, but this museum was littered with bored-looking attendants. You know they were just itching for something to do, the first sign of illegal touching and they would be all over it. They had a lot of Braque as well, which, paired with Picasso, is quite legendary.
One of the most famous features of the Centre Pompidou are the exterior elevators. These days you can only ride them if you've purchased a museum ticket, I guess they'd suffered some abuse by free-loading tourists who wanted a cheap thrill. Somehow, on the way up, I couldn't find the elevator entrance, so I took the escalator, which is also really cool. I felt like I was in Ms. Frizzle's Magic School bus, entering the human intestine. But one of the main reasons I'd
Fountain
It's hard to encompass all its awesomness into one shot.come here was to ride the dang elevator, so I figured going down was the way to do it.
I almost missed it again, but I found these unmarked doors, that read simply "
poussez" on the handle. They looked pretty restricted, but I figured, they wouldn't tell me to push them if they didn't want me to. I'm just following orders. They led out to a catwalk-esque balcony, and my heart beat faster as I saw three sets of red doors. The elevators! I ran over, but was at a loss, since there were no buttons. Maybe they really were off limits...but set aside on an alcoved stand were two arrows. Giddily I pressed the "down" button, and the doors slipped open, probably greased every day. I hopped into the car, surrounded by slick red paint, and zoomed down, my stomach went into my chest as the city flew up. I was Charlie in the Chocolate factory! All I needed was Johnny Depp. Without the silly hair.
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Johnny Depp
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one rhino, two rhino, red rhino, blue rhino
It seems fitting that a fountain ostensibly designed by Tim Burton and Dr. Seuss would be dedicated to Stravinsky. A lot of modern film music sounds like Stravinsky. Love the Magic Schoolbus reference, by the way.