Fountains of Southern California

I'm sure the book "Fountains of Southern California" exists and is lovely. I imagine a coffee table book of lusciously sparkling photography, sketches by fountain designers, a passing reference to the unsustainability of SoCal's water sources, etc.

Among the chapters would be one on children's fountains, their design and function as a play space as well as landscape beautification element. Perhaps including a history of water parks and of the development of water playgrounds, the best of Southern California's children's fountains and water features would be featured. Common trends, like water jetting straight up out of a flat concrete pool, may be researched, their earliest antecedents, futuristic imaginings by competition-winning design students.

I'd include the water features of Kidspace, the children's museum in Pasadena. There is creative use of water throughout the outdoor section of the museum, but most substantial water feature is the fountain gazebo leading to the pool at the top of their walkable stream. Off a corrugated tin roof falls a wall of rain, sometimes heavy sometimes light. Beneath there is a platform and a bench in redwood. The rain falls into the upper pool of the fifty foot concrete and stone stream, with trees all around and a view of some of the hills of Pasadena. To the left of the bench there is a waterwheel slowly turning under its pumped feeder stream. Though the day may be sunny, the sound is of rain on a tree lined lake under grey skies. It is a little odd to match that sound to the bright sparkle of full sunlight shining onto the falling drops, turning them to ephemeral neon lines of white light.