Following a two-year restoration, Ettore Spalletti’s “Fontana” at the Palace of Justice in Pescara has reopened to the public.

Inaugurated in 2004, the work takes the form of a 15 x 9 meter ellipse crafted from absolute black granite from Zimbabwe. A veil of water flows over the surface, transforming it into an atmospheric mirror. It reflects the sky, the clouds, the outline of the Palace of Justice: it embraces its surroundings. 

The azure source from which the water overflows, adding color to color, encompasses within it all the lines of geometry: horizontal, vertical, oblique and curved. The water becomes a depth of color, a sculpture within a sculpture. “Fontana” presents itself to the eye through an absolute and mutable geometry; it acts as a filter between the rigor of a place that houses the rules of civil coexistence and the community to which it belongs, between earth and sky. It embodies a visual stillness that offers, as a gift, a moment of metaphysical suspension within the city.

“A black disk rests rather lost in the square of the new.

In the middle, water overflows out of a geometric blue shape, flooding the whole fountain. The pool of water is there to remind us of the city light; it marks the hours through reflection, giving us different images and colors at different times of the day. When the light fades, a luminous ellipse appears, getting gradually brighter during the night. Perhaps it is the moon. It is a place of contemplation; the water moves slowly with the evening breeze. The sound is that of a mountain stream” - Ettore Spalletti