Just Add Water (8 Photos)

October 15, 2026

By Vidar

These fountains let water do the work

A tap hangs in midair, a bronze man carries an umbrella made of water, and a sailboat gets its sails from falling streams. Elsewhere, a hillside grows a face and water becomes a glowing tunnel. These eight fountains make the flow part of the artwork.

More: Strange Finds (8 Photos)

🚰 Floating Tap — El Puerto de Santa María, Spain 🇪🇸

A giant tap appears to float above its pool in El Puerto de Santa María. The falling water conceals the pipe that supports it and supplies the flow.

📷 Photo by Emilio J. Rodríguez Posada / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

🌿 The Giant — By André Heller in Wattens, Austria 🇦🇹

A waterfall pours from the mouth of a face built into a green hillside. André Heller created the Giant in 1995 for Swarovski’s centenary; it marks the entrance to the Chambers of Wonder at Swarovski Kristallwelten.

📷 Photo by Marek Śliwecki / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

🌼 El Alamein Fountain — By Robert Woodward in Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺

A giant dandelion seems to have taken root in Kings Cross. Robert Woodward’s El Alamein Fountain, opened in 1961 in Fitzroy Gardens, uses sprays at the ends of 211 stalks to form its watery sphere.

💡 History Fact: The fountain is a war memorial to the Australian 9th Division, which fought in both battles of El Alamein in Egypt in 1942. Woodward, himself a World War II army veteran, won the City Council’s 1959 design competition with it.

📷 Photo by Angus Fraser / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

🌀 Charybdis — By William Pye in Seaham, UK 🇬🇧

This close-up looks into a spinning column of water. William Pye’s Charybdis, completed in 2000, creates an air-core vortex inside a clear acrylic cylinder at Seaham Hall, where steps let visitors look down from above.

📷 Photo by Andrew Curtis / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

⛵ Water Boat Fountain — Valencia, Spain 🇪🇸

Streams of water fill the open frame of a sailboat, turning its sails and hull into shimmering sheets. Sunlight makes the boat almost disappear against the sky.

📷 Photo by Juan Andres Martinez / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

✨ Tunnel of Surprises — Lima, Peru 🇵🇪

Glowing jets curve overhead to make a roof you can walk beneath. The Tunnel of Surprises stretches 35 meters through Lima’s Magic Water Circuit.

💡 Place Fact: The fountains stand in the Parque de la Reserva, a park opened in 1929 and named for the reservists who defended Lima during the War of the Pacific in 1881. The water circuit itself was inaugurated on July 26, 2007.

📷 Photo by McKay Savage / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Cover: cropped photos by Emilio J. Rodríguez Posada (CC BY-SA 3.0) and Marek Śliwecki (CC BY-SA 4.0). Cover arrangement: CC BY-SA 4.0.

The floating tap, the water umbrella, or the tunnel you can walk through? Tell us in the comments.

☔ Rain — By Jean-Michel Folon in Lausanne, Switzerland 🇨🇭

The umbrella is made of the very thing it is supposed to keep out. In Jean-Michel Folon’s Rain, water spreads above a bronze man outside the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.

📷 Photo by Guy Delsaut / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

⚙️ Tinguely Fountain — By Jean Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland 🇨🇭

Wheels, pipes, and moving metal figures turn this pool into a performance. Opened in 1977, Jean Tinguely’s fountain occupies the site of Basel’s former theater stage, now Theaterplatz.

💡 History Fact: The fountain was a gift to the city from the Migros cooperative of Basel to mark the cooperative’s 50th anniversary. Tinguely designed and built all ten figures himself, arranging them like actors or dancers on a stage.

📷 Photo by Kurt Riedberger / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).