LOVEJOY FOUNTAIN
Named for Asa Lovejoy, a politician from Boston and an early founder of Portland, this one-acre plaza serves as a counterpoint to the minimalist Source Fountain and a quiet Pettygrove Park, just 300 yards away. It was conceived in the 1960s by Lawrence Halprin + Associates, Satoru Nishita, partner-in-charge, as part of the Portland Open Space Sequence. Often viewed from nearby buildings, the stepped terraces of board-formed concrete planes recall the barren High Sierra landscape that Halprin found inspirational. Vegetation is kept at the park’s perimeter, while within the plaza active fountains mimic the natural waterfalls and rushing streams of the nearby Cascade Range, culminating in quiet pools that invite visitors not just to look, but also to participate in the water feature itself. Providing a sheltered space is a wooden lattice pavilion designed by San Francisco architects Charles Moore and William Turnbull, Jr., who were also collaborating with Halprin at the time on the California development of The Sea Ranch.
The Lovejoy Fountain was a part of the South Auditorium, the Prosper Portland’s (Portland Development Commission) first urban renewal project. The same coin that Portland pioneers, Asa Lovejoy and Francis W. Pettygrove used to determine whether our city would be called Boston or Portland was flipped to determine which park in the open space sequence would be Lovejoy and which would be Pettygrove.
The concrete fountain was installed in 1966. "The fountain wonderfully captures the spirit of Oregon's streams. Pouring in a sheet over the lip of the upper pool, the water is whipped into a foaming cascade as it splashes down over an irregular series of stairsteps and then out again into a placid lower basin." (The Oregonian, 7.28.66)
In 2001, the Lawrence Halprin Landscapes Conservancy was formed to preserve and safeguard Halprin’s Portland legacy. The Lovejoy Fountain/Portland Open Space Sequence was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in March 2013.
