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In the sculptor's case, no. He died. quite so.

In fact, she died just a couple of weeks ago! Not really the time to be talking about uprooting one of her pieces of public art, no matter what one thinks of it, so I'm not surprised Apple have (for once) backed down in the face of an obstacle.
 
1. The fountain could be moved to somewhere completely different and more appropriate, as it has lost all context anyway.

2. With regards to the wall, it could simply have had a mural painted on it that has infinite possibilities to enhance the street level pedestrian experience without impacting the main building at all.

3. Pushing the stockton glass wall back into the building rather than the flush effect that was intended sort of ruins the whole concept. This is just some sad committee members gorn mad with power.

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One thing I don't like about this design is with the giant window, pervs can easily look up someone's dress.


I'll bet you're the spoil sport who complained about the glass staircases and made Apple install frosted glass.
 
Wow. All this time, since the story first showed up on MacRumors, I was imagining a nice fountain. I figured maybe it was an average, ordinary fountain, at the worst. But that is one ugly fountain. In fact, the worst I have ever seen.

It's hard to screw up a fountain, that's the mistake I made in my thinking.

Now a big glass Apple Store, that's a work of art.
 
Apple caved... unusual
It's Tim Cook! Not the first time he's been more of a listener than Jobs. And I think it's good. It makes them slightly more human. :p The fountain doesn't exactly blend in with Apple's design philosophy, but I think it's important to be able to respectfully preserve culture at some times. Not doing so has led to some of the other side of the coin of Apple's reputation.
 
Not so much

Apple will make a lot of people in San Fran happy by keeping that junk/modern-art/water-fountain where it is.

Not this San Franciscan. That thing is an eyesore, and always looks filthy.

Which it probably is, since the homeless use it as a urinal.

Maybe once Apple takes over the property, they'll clean the damn thing from time to time...
 
if u designed something and someone wanted to move it or somehting, wouldnt u be upset?

I would be upset. But the question is not whether one artist or "artist" is upset, but what the people looking at it think. If the fountain was offered for sale, and you could buy it and put it up in your garden, how much would you have offered? I wouldn't have wanted it for free (although I know someone who would have taken it and made money scrapping it).

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I'm sure MacRumors' global audience finds this saga really fascinating.

Actually I'm fascinated. A minor planning issue becomes a fight between progressive vs traditional preferences, right-ist vs left-ist politics, the state of San Francisco, all on the first couple of pages.

Admittedly, I'd prefer to be reading how the Mac Pro is being aggressively priced at $999, but this is good entertainment in the meantime. :)

On topic: I do agree Cook seems a lot more willing to bend to public opinion. Sometimes Jobs seemed to reject convention not so much by indifference but by compulsion. It strikes me as - warning: amateur analysis - as a guy who never felt he fit in socially, and so rejected societies conventions so as not to be judged by them.

Now that I think about it, I wonder what kind of fountain Ives would build...
 
If you remember history...people hated the Eiffel Tower too.

Art isn't supposed to please everyone...it evokes emotion and conversation. I personally think the fountain is ugly, but it is history. If we tore down everything people thought was ugly the planet would be barren.

Whether you like the fountain or not, it is art. Apple was wrong to remove it from the location completely. San Francisco is a city for people, it isn't a city for Apple to do with what it pleases. Though I am a fan of Apple, I don't believe their sensibilities on product design should dictate what art is displayed and where in a community.

I applaud Apple for recognizing they aren't the only constituents in that area. Their changes allowing for the fountain to stay at the location are to be commended.

Thanks Apple,
...Now, dazzle me with the 5s and ios7 for the 5s.
 
The fountain is a piece of Art if you like it or not. Such is art! But it doesn't need to stay where it is. Sculptures are moved all the time.

What get me is San Fran is worried about a wall of glass, when the Current building is not that much different - This is what the front looks like at the moment anyway.

gmaps link
 
Art isn't supposed to please everyone...it evokes emotion and conversation. I personally think the fountain is ugly, but it is history. If we tore down everything people thought was ugly the planet would be barren.

Whether you like the fountain or not, it is art.

Art isn't supposed to please everyone, but just not pleasing everyone, or pleasing very few people, doesn't make it art either. I wonder what the people thought who paid for it when it was finished. Did they think "we got some excellent artwork for our money", or did they think "oh what a pile of rubbish, and we can't even say it's rubbish because we paid for it and we'll look like idiots"?

And sorry, but standing there for forty years doesn't make it history.

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The fountain is a piece of Art if you like it or not. Such is art!

Is it? There are many things that I like or don't like that aren't art, and many things I like or don't like that are. What exactly is your justification to call it art? Tell us and avoid circular arguments like "it is art because it was made by an artist. And the woman was an artist because she created art".
 
art is bull ****

art is the biggest pile of crap of all time. i wish i could get through life by spending my time doing arts and crafts.

It interesting how you can be unemployed, broke and people will snub their nose at you. But if that same person goes around and says theyre an "artist" people will actually give them respect. they may even be given money and a studio to work in.
 
Now if more cities could make companies bend to their will we'd be in a much better place.

I fail to see why, since the company is people and the city is also people. It's just opinions vs opinions. Why would council members' ideas be better than the executive team of a company as a default?

But cities always can win in such situations. They hold the trump card, just as in this case. They don't have to approve the deal, or the design. Apple doesn't have a choice but to "cave". (making that a poor choice of word)

What you may have witnessed is some cities bending over backwards for a particular deal, but they certainly don't have to.
 
I fail to see why, since the company is people and the city is also people. It's just opinions vs opinions. Why would council members' ideas be better than the executive team of a company as a default?

But cities always can win in such situations. They hold the trump card, just as in this case. They don't have to approve the deal, or the design. Apple doesn't have a choice but to "cave". (making that a poor choice of word)

What you may have witnessed is some cities bending over backwards for a particular deal, but they certainly don't have to.

One is elected and one is not that's why ones ideas by default are better. One has a macro vision of where they want the city and the people to go, one has a macro vision of where they want the company to go. The company is nothing more than a cog in the larger society.
 
wow there is an unusually large amount of bile in this thread..

Back on topic, am I the only one thinking that fountain would not travel well?
 
Is it? There are many things that I like or don't like that aren't art, and many things I like or don't like that are. What exactly is your justification to call it art? Tell us and avoid circular arguments like "it is art because it was made by an artist. And the woman was an artist because she created art".

I'll simplify it then: Art is art because we call it "art".

Art is a lot of things. Art tends to be something which has more to do with it's aestetics than its actual practical applications. The sculptor could have easily smoothed it out which would have saved a lot of time, and certainly made it easier to fix if it somehow got damaged.

Mostly it's just something that people have gotten used to. Considering people, as a whole, tend to dislike change that they have no control over that's really all the explanation I need to people wanting to preserve it.

I wonder what the people thought who paid for it when it was finished. Did they think "we got some excellent artwork for our money", or did they think "oh what a pile of rubbish, and we can't even say it's rubbish because we paid for it and we'll look like idiots"?

Now this I can agree with. :D
 
One is elected and one is not that's why ones ideas by default are better. One has a macro vision of where they want the city and the people to go, one has a macro vision of where they want the company to go. The company is nothing more than a cog in the larger society.
So, an election means the winner understands art better than someone else? Is that why people voted for them?

You are giving some people way too much credit. I heard one of these elected people in my city, ranting on about something far more important than glass walls: education. She voted against a certain project to help keep a school alive, claiming we need diversity and educational goals. Clueless idiot, the school provides exactly what she was saying, she actually sounded like a proponent of the plan, in her comments claiming to be against. Luckily everyone else on the council voted for the school's proposal, it will have a better ownership situation soon.

That's just one example. There's nothing special about most politicians. Esp at this level, it's often just the only people that signed up.
 
So, an election means the winner understands art better than someone else? Is that why people voted for them?

You are giving some people way too much credit. I heard one of these elected people in my city, ranting on about something far more important than glass walls: education. She voted against a certain project to help keep a school alive, claiming we need diversity and educational goals. Clueless idiot, the school provides exactly what she was saying, she actually sounded like a proponent of the plan, in her comments claiming to be against. Luckily everyone else on the council voted for the school's proposal, it will have a better ownership situation soon.

That's just one example. There's nothing special about most politicians. Esp at this level, it's often just the only people that signed up.

I'm terribly unconcerned about the art. I'm far more concerned with SF setting a precedent of not getting run over by a multinational. I'm not enamored with voters in any way but it is their city and they decide what goes on in their city right, wrong, or indifferent.
 
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