The great monumental fountain, designed by the French artist Daniel Buren, stands in the permanent museum park of contemporary art, called The Spirit of the Place, in front of the Medici Villa La Magia in Quarrata.
Installed in a frontal position with respect to the fine view offered from the ridge of the Montalbano, it is a presence that redefines the surrounding space, permitting a new reading of it.
Buren wanted the panels to "frame" views of the countryside, woods and the villa itself.
It is a hexagonal environment with walls made from Carrara marble, measuring 3 x 3 x 0.5 m – externally smooth – and broken by a six-metre gap for access.
A bench, also hexagonal, is positioned in the middle of the internal space, and has a fountain from which water flows with a gentle gurgling sound that is an invitation to stop, relax and converse.
The marble walls are internally etched with vertical 8.7 cm stripes – yellow, blue and red – alternate on the surfaces where the water flows, while the rest are a natural colour.
Then an introverted fountain, where six walls, "waterfalls" scratched from the usual stripes, define the interior space, which is related with the surrounding landscape through the "windows", obtained by cuts in the work perimeter.
“I always felt a personal pleasure to play with water. Here there is water and its movement within a very rigid structure of stripes, which I use for a long time, and I love the fact that water alters a little bit this rigidity.” Daniel Buren
