SF Redevelopment Plan Threatens Brutalist Vaillancourt Fountain
88Oct. 17, 2025
The City of San Francisco has proposed a $35 million renovation of Embarcadero Plaza that does not include the park’sVaillancourt Fountain, a 710-ton Brutalist concrete structure completed in 1971 by Canadian artist Armand Vaillancourt. Built to circulate 30,000 gallons of water, the fountain has attracted attention as a landmark both locally and internationally: In 1987, U2’s Bonospray-paintedit with the words “Rock ’n’ Roll Stops the Traffic” during a free concert the band was giving nearby; two years later, it survived the tremendously destructive Loma Prieta earthquake; and in the 1990s, it became a hot spot for street skaters, who flocked from all over the world to grind its ledges.
The fountain, which resembles a tumbling mess of boxy concrete tubes, some nearly forty feet high, has long been controversial. Renowned architecture critic Allan Temko described it as looking like feces “deposited by a giant concrete dog with square intestines,” whileSan Francisco Chronicleart critic Charles Desmarais averred that it “deserves respect.” In 2024, the city, which periodically cut water to the fountain in times of drought, drained it amid what a city spokesperson toldSFGatewas an effort to assess the condition of its mechanical and electrical systems. It has remained dry since and was fenced off by the city this past June.
The New York Times reports that the city’s Recreation and Park Department (RPD) has asked its Arts Commission for permission to deaccession the fountain, which it characterized as a “design constraint” in regard to the planned renovation, to be conducted via a public-private partnership. The fountain reportedly contains hazardous materials that make it a seismic risk and is additionally not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The RPD has estimated that it would cost roughly $29 million to repair it.
The fountain’s ninety-six-year-old creator was not apprised of the work’s impending destruction but instead was alerted by his children, who had read about it online. He subsequently traveled to San Francisco to meet with officials regarding its fate. “They were polite,” the artist’s son Alexis Vaillancourt told the Times. “Our feeling was that they wanted to demolish the sculpture.”
A vote by the RPD on the fountain’s fate is pending.