When I Think Of A Fountain,

in a European city, I think of this,

photograph www.turismoroma, the Trevi Fountain (Italian: Fontana di Trevi), it is a 18th-century fountain in the Trevi district in Rome, Italy, designed by Italian architect Nicola Salvi and completed by Giuseppe Pannini in 1762, so when I heard that the Austrian city of Vienna has commissioned a fountain by the avantgarde Viennese art group Gelitin, I was interested to have a look, the fountain is to commemorate 150 years of Vienna’s modern water system which provided the city with fresh water from streams in the green forests of the Alps and helped eradicate plagues like cholera, and here it is,

photograph KOER.or.at I do not wish to be impolite, but it was not quite what I expected, and as it happens it hasn’t done so well with the general public, inaugurated on October 24, in the presence of Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen, Vienna’s newest water fountain (called ‘WirWasser’) quickly attracted mass criticism on social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), with lots of people dubbing it the ugliest water fountain they had ever seen, and others going as far as claiming that it damages Vienna’s image,

 despite the criticism, the local Government led by Social Democrat Mayor Michael Ludwig insists that the artistic fountain’s “extraordinary, reality-inspired” design conveys a pivotal “sense of togetherness”, the original price was 2.1 million euros, at today’s rate £1,800,308.10 or $2,287,425.00, but whatever your views are about the masterpiece here is the good news, officials say they actually brought the price down to 1.8 euros at today’s rate £1,543,770.00 or $ 1,960,650.00, so it is a bit of a bargain! I have to say when spending money like this I would have thought some sort of public consultation should have taken place, and as it happens there was, if you want to see the rejected designs have a look here, citizens of Vienna enjoy!