Greg Lynn: Fountain of Toys

Photo: arcspace

Fountain of Toys, the new sculptural work by Los Angeles-based architect Greg Lynn, is sited in the Museum's outdoor courtyard.

As the title suggests, the work is a functioning fountain made out of large plastic found children's toys that have been cut and reassembled in multiple layers, with water spouting from its top and pooling at its base.

Photo: Brian Forrest

Photo: Brian Forrest

Constructed with more than fifty-seven prefabricated plastic whale and shark teeter totters welded together and unified by the application of a white automotive paint, Fountain will be a gathering place for the warm summer months.


Photo: Brian Forrest

Photo: Brian Forrest

Image courtesy of Greg Lynn Form

I have always been interested in objects smaller than buildings and larger than furniture that exist in the outdoor realm of streets, plazas and courtyards. Fountain is a fun Spring and Summer project for the Hammer as it is noisy, wet and playful.  It is also serious business in the sense that it is, like the Blobwall that preceded it, a recapitulation of masonry construction and one of the most fundamental building elements; the brick.  Using a digital design medium, digital scans of found objects and robotic fabrication with intricacy and precision the brick becomes a lightweight hollow construction element with the expressive properties of rusticated block with minimal embedded energy instead of a dense, hard, heavy kiln fired rectangular artificial rock./Greg Lynn

Photo: Jesse FlemingFabrication view of Greg Lynn with Fountain at Machineous, Los Angeles.

Photo: arcspaceGreg Lynn signing blobs at the opening of Blobwall Pavilion at SCI Arc in Los Angeles.

Image courtesy of Greg Lynn FormRecycled plastic toys and Panelite.

Lynn's innovative use of computer-aided design and robots to create complex forms has placed him at the cutting edge of architecture and design. In 2001 Time magazine named him one of its one hundred most innovative people in the world for the twenty-first century, and in 2005 Forbes magazine named him one of the ten most influential living architects. The buildings, projects, publications, teachings, and writings associated with his practice, Greg Lynn FORM, have been influential in the acceptance and use of advanced technology for design and fabrication.
Greg Lynn's Fountain is the first architecture and design project guest-curated by architectural historian Sylvia Lavin. As part of Hammer Projects, Laving will organize a new project approximately once a year over the next three years that will present new works by architecs and designers. These projects will be sited in different locations around the Museum.