With the passing of Lawrence Halprin on October 25th, I’d planned to write about Portland’s Keller Fountain in my previous post but could not find my photographs. But now I’ve found some of them. These particular photos were all taken over two separate trips in April and July of 2004. I still remember my first visit to the fountain when I was young, thinking it was the coolest fountain ever and running around, exploring every nook and cranny, climbing up the watery stairs, running behind the water and walking through the upper streams.

I had another awe inspiring experience after getting out from a play at the Keller Auditorium at night and stopping, along with many others, shortly after exiting the doors at the grandeur of the fountain. This was a completely different experience because it was neither warm nor daytime and no one was in the space, but it had this amazing grabbing power of surprise upon seeing suddenly after having been sitting for a couple hours. I could even feel a mist on my face from the water, all the way from the other side of the street.

The magic of Ira Keller Fountain is not only in it’s dramatic design but in it’s highly varied spaces and ability to interact with the water in many different ways. And even with the power of the high volumes of water gushing from the fountain or the depth of the water, people are invited to touch, wade, soak, climb, explore and swim.

One of the things people seem to enjoy the most is jumping into the upper pool at the top of the falls. These are not small pools either, they are actually fairly deep and I’ve seen kids do cannon balls in them. You can see from the picture below just how deep it is.

The amazing part is, for those who visit this fountain in person for the first time always remark, there is quite a height to these falls and there is nothing between the upper pools and the edge of the falls and down to the lower pool. It could seem so easy for someone to fall over the side and yet, to the best of my knowledge, no one has. As it turns out, people can in fact look out for their own safety and exercise some common sense.

The water steps that come cascading down one side of the space are fun to climb up, while other prefer to lounge on the side. Another fun thing is on the opposite side, an area to walk under and behind the cascading water.

images (c) Lisa Town

And for more regarding Lawrence Halprin, there is a great article in the NY Times as well as several videos posted on Design Intelligence.