Fountain intended for kids

As one of the designers of the Seven Canyons Fountain, I must correct my good friend Val Pope's statement in the Deseret Morning News (July 14): "When the fountain was first designed, it was meant to be a visual feature rather than an interactive feature," Pope said. "It was not designed for the public to use. But we found as we went along that it was hard to discourage that."

To suggest that the fountain was to be a diorama of some kind gives the impression we never intended the thousands of kids that frequent the fountain to be in the fountain. The exact opposite is the case. We wanted kids to explore water and through it the story of how water moves through our oasis on the edge of the desert.

When the late Boyd Blackner (project architect) and his daughter Elizabeth, John Swain (Salt Lake City's landscape architect with the Parks and Recreation Department at the time) and I worked on conceptual designs for the piece, we always intended it to be an interactive environment. Moreover, the design team strongly recommended and specified options for a robust water filtration system. It was concluded by the city that these features would be too costly, even though the original project came in under budget.

Mr. Blackner was an extraordinary practitioner of his work. Health and safety concerns were utmost in his mind, and on all of our minds when we created this extremely successful and popular water feature.

Stephen A. Goldsmith

Frederick P. Rose Architectural Fellowship

The Enterprise Foundation

Salt Lake City