Paper: Houston Chronicle

Date: SUN 09/28/03

Section: A

Page: 33 Metfront

Edition: 4 STAR

URBAN DEVELOPMENT / City on road to 'walkability' / Fountains gowith the flow to revive downtown

By ALLAN TURNER

Staff

Houston artist Elena Cusi Wortham doesn't care if homeless peoplebathe in the cascading white water of her fountain, one of 12 being erected askey elements in a $62 million effort to make downtown Houston a more invitingplace to live, work and visit.

But when she thinks of the vandals who wrecked her artwork, shegrows livid.

"We are the builders," the diminutive Mexican-bornartist steamed, "and they are the destroyers."

Wortham's comments came as she works to redesign the ruinedfountain, which occupies the north wall of the Rice Lofts parking garage atTravis and Prairie, and as her sponsor, the Houston Downtown DevelopmentDistrict, pushes to complete its ambitious Cotswold Project remake of thecity's historic 90-block center.

In June, completion of the project's first phase - which includedwidening sidewalks, narrowing streets, planting trees and installing decorativelights and fountains on Texas Avenue, Prairie, Crawford and Preston - wascelebrated by a water pistol salute fired by Boy Scouts in full regalia. MayorLee Brown was on hand to herald downtown's rebirth as a playground forpedestrians.

Boosters say Cotswold improvements, coupled with the $7.9 million,three-block Main Street Square, which will feature a block-long fountainjetting water over the new light rail trains, will nurture a vibrant streetlife that in recent years has been painfully absent.

Main Street Square and much of the Cotswold Project should becompleted by the end of January, when an estimated 130,000 football fans areexpected to swarm the city for the 2004 Super Bowl.

When completed next summer, Cotswold will have placed eight newfountains - lead designer Rey de la Reza called them "wonderful eventsalong the journey" - on Preston, three on Congress and one on Prairie.

"We are altering downtown Houston," said managementdistrict spokeswoman Jodie Sinclair. "It's not just an office parkanymore."

"Cotswold is more than streetscapes," added GuyHagstette, the project's planning and development manager. "It has directeconomic benefits to Houston's original town site, and it creates a pedestrianenvironment that links the Theater District, Harris County campus and MinuteMaid Park, transforming the area into a richly textured urbanneighborhood."

The city's reliance on water, from Buffalo Bayou to thewater-filled geologic structures beneath its urban sprawl, is a dominantCotswold theme. And watery signs of rebirth - carefully designed to refreshwithout splashing those passing on city sidewalks - already are emerging fromdowntown's construction chaos.

At Preston and Main, 14-foot-tall limestone jars shimmer beneath asheet of flowing water; at the courthouse, water on a granite block etched tosuggest the city's bayous rises to flood stage, overflows, then recedes; nearthe ballpark, a 6-foot bronze baseball protrudes from a ragged, water-filledhole in the sidewalk.

The new fountains may not be as grand as Giovanni LorenzoBernini's in Rome's Piazza Navona. They may not even be as grand as the MecomFountain near Hermann Park. But they soothe weary pedestrians, and theycomplement existing fountains, such as the dancing geysers, beloved bychildren, at downtown's Aquarium Restaurant. And they almost double the numberof fountains in the city's center.

Still, the rebirth has not been painless.

Preston's face-lift ran a year behind schedule, largely because ofthe unexpected snake's nest of pipes and fiber-optic cable that workersencountered when they rolled back the pavement. Mechanical problems haveplagued some fountains - the Main/Preston fountains have been on and off forabout a month - and vandals have attacked at least two of the artworks.

Worst hit was Wortham's fountain, an 11-foot-tall water wall oftextured concrete that featured 13 cast bronze philodendron leaves and wascompleted at a cost of $225,000 in March 2000. Each leaf concealed a valve todrip water down the wall's face. But within months, said Tom Davis, thedistrict's construction manager, mineral deposits stopped the flow.

Top leaves remained dry while those at the bottom worked normally.More drip valves were added, and Wortham was commissioned to cast 26 moreleaves to hide them. The new leaves, costing $10,000, were added in September2001.

Then, on July 6, 2002, the leaves were stolen. (A local bronzedealer said the leaves probably were worth about 60 cents a pound as scrapmetal.) Since then, the fountain has limped along in partial operation as planswere made for its redesign, a process Davis said will cost about $13,000.

Meanwhile, a block away on the south side of Market Square, atile-covered "water table" fountain designed by Austin artist MalouFlato was knocked out of commission in mid-summer when an above-ground waterpipe mysteriously broke and flooded an underground electrical control room.

Davis said the cost of repair has not been determined.

Flato, whose public artworks grace Boston's Logan Airport and asubway station, seemingly took the probable vandalism in stride.

"One of the reasons I've gotten so much work is that I alwayswrite the prospectus that my tile works are vandal-proof and are art that canbe wiped down," she said.

The Corpus Christi-born artist now is working on a second fountainfor installation on the park's north side. Both feature colored tiles similarto those used on the park's benches, also designed by Flato.

Wortham took the attack on her work much harder.

"It's my reputation being damaged, with that hanging up therefor two or three years, looking terrible," she said.

For her new design, Wortham once again turned to her backyardgarden for inspiration, using elongated ginger leaves in a colorful ceramicmixture of leaves, vines, tendrils and blossoms.

Construction manager Davis said the ceramic artwork, to be firmlyglued to its concrete wall, will be less vulnerable to attack. Like the firstfountain, Wortham's new work will be awash in a sheet of flowing water - thistime delivered through a simplified, clog-proof system.

"Houston should be a city of fountains," Wortham said."As it is now, downtown Houston is ugly, a place of parking lots."

Guarding against future attacks on the fountains is of concern toDawn Ullrich, director of the city's Convention and Entertainment FacilitiesDepartment, which takes control of the artworks as they are completed.

Ullrich said her department has contracted for a full-time workerto maintain the 12 Cotswold fountains, as well as two existing fountains underher jurisdiction at Jones Plaza and Sesquicentennial Park.

Social glitches such as vandalism are just unpleasant birth painsthat will diminish as downtown Houston matures into a pedestrian-friendly urbancenter, architect de la Reza said.

"Vandalism doesn't happen to the same type of art pieces inPortland," he said of the Oregon city's pedestrian-friendly downtown."There's pride in the city. People don't deface it."

Houston, he said, remains an urban upstart.

"I attended a conference in Boston, where they talked aboutusing European cities as a model," he said. "When Houston was foundedin 1836, Boston was older than Houston is now. We are in our infancy as a city.We are creating our legacy right now."