Art: War Whoop for Freedom

"Stonehenge unhinged with plumbing troubles," griped one local critic. Another called it "the funeral of beauty in art," and an environmental vigilante committee proposed to bring to the dedication a large papier-mache dog that would expel a mass of papier-mache feces at the climax of the ceremony.

The object of all this controversy was the new fountain on San Francisco's Embarcadero Plaza. A monumental structure of squared concrete tubes, cantilevering in all directions above a five-sided pool, it was designed by Canadian Sculptor Armand Vaillancourt, 38, who won the commission in a competition...