The fountain and pool in front of the University of Chicago Law School is one of those provocative works of art that inspires viewers to eloquence.

"It's kind of nasty, to be honest," observed Charles P. "Charlie" Floyd, 26, a June graduate.

It's ugly "and we all know it," Emily Haus, another June graduate, wrote in her "Top 10 Reasons" to donate to the fountain's rehab.

"Basically, we looked at it while it collected trash, either full or empty," Floyd added.

"It's drained so much of the year it just becomes this empty, black trash pit," he said. Or, when filled with water, "it's covered with algae."

Yet this fountain is the site of many memories for students and faculty.

Some, including Haus, said it can be, though on rare occasions, quite lovely.

According to Professor Douglas G. Baird, the construction of the law school in 1959 ran over budget, so officials decided to eliminate the reflecting pool.

To save it, Baird said the world-famous architect who designed the law school, Eero Saarinen, changed the pool and fountain to be "cheaper than grass."

(As an example of what Saarinen can do, he designed the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.)

"The reflecting pool could be fabulous," Baird said. "Unfortunately, it's not fabulous."

But that soon may change.

The 2006 graduating class now has raised almost $10,000 for renovation of the pool and fountain as its class gift to the U of C law school. The total raised could go higher, said Kirston Fortune, director of external communications for the school.

Sitting directly in front of the law school at 1111 E. 60th St., the pool, as observed by a reporter in May, was like a dark mud puddle about 10-by-30 yards with a small spray in the middle and an abstract sculpture at one end.

Yet the memories...

"After our last final my 1L year," Haus recalled, "a group of people played an impromptu game of water polo" in the pool. The water is up to 3 feet deep. "That," she said, "is an image I won't soon forget."

The 1L barbecue by the fountain is a tradition.

"Back in the '70s," Fortune said, "they let the pond freeze, and law students would play hockey in it. ... I heard from one of the faculty members that a puck broke one of the windows."

For the law school's centennial year in 2002-03, the dean "bought some of those remote-controlled boats," Fortune added.
"He called it the Centennial Navy. They put them in the fountain and crashed the boats into one another and chased the ducks with them."

"There's ducks and sometimes geese and neighborhood dogs and all sorts of creatures," in the fountain, she said.
When empty, as it is much of the year, students play Frisbee in the empty sunken pool and neighborhood children bicycle and skateboard in it.

"In the summer ... when all the jets are working and it's a sunny day, I think it's really stunning," Fortune said. "It's a wonderful expression of the Modernist aesthetic."

The fountain is supposed to have perhaps eight jets that each shoot water straight up. But the pump for those is broken, and the temporary replacement, according to Fortune, "is not a jet anymore. It just sprays the water."

Because the fountain was designed to be cheaper than grass, it does get "algae and stuff like that in it," Baird said.

The sculpture at one end, a wings abstraction by Russian artist Antoine Pevsner, is named, "Spatial Construction in the Third and Fourth Dimension." It's known colloquially as "The Pevsner."

Baird said tentative plans for the renovation of the fountain are to replace it with a zero-depth fountain "like the one at Millennium Park" that has less than an inch of water.

If done right, "What we'll have," Baird said, "is a reflecting pool reflective of the Pevsner and the building.

"When we can't have a fountain," in the wintertime, "we won't have an eyesore, we'll also have a beautiful plaza."

"We're looking forward to coming back and seeing the fruits of our donation in action," said Floyd. "I can't wait to see the new one."

Copyright 2006 Law Bulletin Publishing Company