El Alamein Fountain

About

The El Alamein Memorial Fountain is a heritage-listed fountain and war memorial located at Macleay Street in the inner Sydney locale of Kings Cross, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by the Australian architects Robert Woodward and Phill Taranto as employed by architectural firm Woodward and Woodward. The fountain was built from 1959 to 1961. It is also known as El Alamein Fountain, Fitzroy Gardens Group, Kings Cross Fountain and King's Cross Fountain. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 14 January 2011. The El Alamein Fountain was commissioned as a memorial to soldiers who died in 1942 during World War II in two battles at El Alamein, Egypt.

The Australian 9th Division fought in both the first (July 1942) and second (November 1942) battles of El Alamein during World War II. Both were important for the course of the war. They halted the advance of Axis forces into Egypt and routed them, and are considered a turning point in the Western Desert Campaign. The El Alamein Fountain in Sydney commemorates the Australian army's roles in the North Africa campaign in general, and the two El Alamein battles in particular.

Competition for the El Alamein Memorial Fountain

Woodward & Taranto won the main prize of £ 500 in 1959 in the City Council fountains competition. The competition had been organised by the Sydney Fountains Committee, which was established in September 1958. Its aim was to put fountains in public places in Sydney to enhance their natural beauty and to commemorate families, individuals and organisations. A Designs Committee was responsible for the design competitions for fountains in a number of selected sites, such as the Fitzroy Gardens in Kings Cross, Moore Park, Customs House Square, and Macquarie Place. The competition for the Fitzroy Gardens fountain was assessed by a panel of architects (Max Collard, President of the RAIA (NSW Chapter), and Professor Leslie Wilkinson ), sculptors ( Douglas Annand ), and the City Council.

The Committee's design brief for the fountain was: "The fountain shall cost not more than £ 10,000 complete. Whilst the fountain is not to be a war memorial in the generally accepted sense, it is nevertheless contemplated that Fitzroy Gardens will become a local assembly point on Anzac Day and the fountain will be known as a war memorial fountain." This association between the park and a war memorial began in October 1957 when the Kings Cross Sub-Branch of the Returned Sailors, Soldiers and Airmen's Imperial League of Australia approached the Council about the possibility of changing the name of the park to El Alamein Park. In December 1958 the Council resolved to hold a public competition for designs for a fountain to be provided in Fitzroy Gardens that may also serve as a memorial.

The Australasian Post explained further: 'The plan for the fountain was suggested by the King's Cross RSL, when they asked that a place be set aside for memorial services "because older servicemen are finding it very difficult to get to and from the Memorial gates opposite the wharves in Woolloomooloo".

Robert (Bob) Woodward (1923–2010) together with Phill Taranto was commissioned to build the fountain in 1959. Woodward, himself an Army veteran, was 36 at the time and had studied architecture at Sydney University, and worked in Finland. The structure was completed in 1961 and officially opened by Harry Jensen, Lord Mayor of Sydney. The fountain made such a name for Woodward and the firm that he went on to design many others, and his fountains are his best-known works.

Woodward's Modernist design has been variously described as looking like a blown thistle, or dandelion. The sculpture is made of bronze with brass pipes. The small-nozzled spray heads make the sphere-shaped spray very fine, and sensitive to air movement. The fountain sits on a hexagonal base, where the water cascades down three levels. It is illuminated at night.

Reception of the fountain since completion

Tom Heath's appraisal of El Alamein in 1962 captured the excitement of the moment:

'El Alamein fountain at Kings Cross has fulfilled beyond expectation the promise of the original design. Surely no one can pass this dandelion of water gleaming in the sun or glowing with its own internal light at night and resist its fascination. The bold formality of the sphere catches one's attention immediately, yet this first impression of simplicity gives way at once to a fascinating complexity. The sphere is not a sphere but a mass of saucer shaped facets. The facets are not saucer-shaped but complex curves deformed by wind and gravity. There are transparencies, reflections and rainbow effects in the curtain of spray. By the time one has observed this much, one is obstructing the traffic and being regarded with contempt by old men who have been studying it all comfortably from benches for hours'.

El Alamein Fountain won the inaugural RAIA NSW Chapter Civic Design Award in 1964. Woodward explained 'We had nominated it for design awards but it was considered not to be architecture and so it didn't get an award. The NSW Chapter of the Royal Institute of Architects then instigated a new award, the Civic Design Award, because of the El Alamein Fountain'.

"A fountain of great beauty", said the judges, in presenting the new NSW Chapter of the RAIA Civic Design Award to architects Woodward, Tarantino and Wallace for the breathtaking El Alamein Fountain at King's Cross, Sydney. The jury considered there could hardly be a more appropriate recipient of this first Civic Design Award'.

An article in the popular magazine Australasian Post in 1967 stated:

- 'It is probably one of the most beautiful man-made things in the land... Since Sydney's beautiful King's Cross fountain was first turned on, little over six years ago, people from all parts of the world have asked, "Who dreamed it up?" And they're still asking. The designer is an Australian, Mr Robert Raymond Woodward, and the fountain has made him famous. Today he is recognized as the world's top fountain designer. Last month he came back from San Francisco, where he supervised the installation of a fountain built to his own design. Night and day, people come to take pictures of his King's Cross fountain... Everybody seems to know about the fountain and it is now a recognised easy-to-find meeting place because "anybody will tell you where it is". Mr C.S. Garth, Sydney's Director of Parks, said, 'We knew the fountain was original, that it was unique. We knew it would create a lot of interest. But I don't think anyone realised just how much interest it would create. Overseas visitors come here, take color pictures, and take them home, Now everyone seems to want a fountain like ours'... Mr Garth said the original cost of the fountain was $32,028 and the annual maintenance bill was about $3248. Cost of electricity to operate the floodlights and water-circulating mechanism absorbs $3048 of the maintenance allotment.'

Freeland's Architecture in Australia, 1967 stated:

- 'Fountains were particularly popular and prestigious because of their patent luxury after nearly sixty years when circumstances had demanded a practical return for any money spent. Only one of the many fountains erected throughout Australia was really successful - and it could hardly have been more so. The El Alamein fountain designed by Woodward and Taranto and erected at Kings Cross in Sydney in 1961 is a splendid sculpture in water. Its ephemeral ever-changing ever-remaining lightness dances tantalizingly in the sunshine or turns the reflections of gaudy neon lights into jewels at night. Its poetry was a sculptural breakthrough not only in Australia but in the world'.

Carol Henty wrote for The Bulletin in 1978:

- 'It is to Sydney what Eros is to London. The inner city heads for it on New Year's Eve. Pranksters have dyed it green, put soap bubbles through it and bathed nude in it. It's sometimes called the dandelion. Or the puff ball. Or the porcupine. Officially it's the El Alamein Fountain in Fitzroy Gardens, Kings Cross - the first fountain designed by Sydney's Bob Woodward, opened 18 years ago but with a touch of magic that's still potent. At last count 72 American companies were manufacturing it in seven different sizes and exporting it worldwide, making it probably the world's most copied fountain'.

In an interview with Woodward in 1996, architectural historians Paul Alan Johnson and Susan Lorne Johnson stated, 'Australians really seem to have taken the fountain to their hearts... Australians don't usually seem to be overly enthusiastic about their sculpture or their architecture... The fountain is now an icon in Australia and internationally admired'. 'The El Alamein Fountain represents an important technological innovation in fountain design, and has been much replicated throughout the world.'