Fountain of Hevelius

Object: The fountain consists of two parts: a waterfall and several dozen jets gathered on and around three metal rings. The water flows out of a stone wall near the Great Mill, creating a waterfall and corresponding with the cascades of water created by the nearby Radunia Channel. It also constitutes an interesting compositional closure in relation to the medieval buttress wall behind it. The water flows down from the wall at a length of 4 m, creating a smooth sheet of water illuminated in the evenings with a single-colour light. The shallow body of water at the foot of the fountain acts like a mirror, in which the elements of architecture, vegetation and the sky are reflected – this is the first fountain in Poland to use this effect. The lighting of the device as well as frothy and laminar flow nozzles located in rings represent a modern solution that makes it possible to create a variety of water and light images. The fountain operates in five specially created choreographies of light and water. These effects reflect symbolic moods: anticipation/loneliness, longing/anxiety, joy/meeting and euphoria/fulfilment. A quarter before each full hour, the fountain enters its most spectacular special programme, which is a cumulation of all the moods. The fountain sequence is complemented by multi-coloured illumination of the trees in Heveliusza Square and illumination of the tower of Saint Catherine’s Church. At weekends, around 9.45 p.m., this mutually complementary spectacle is further enhanced by the sound of the carillon. The image-changing fountain creates an intimate show of water and light.

At the back of the wall that forms part of the fountain, there is a quote from Johannes Hevelius’s Selenographia: “In water, this flowing matter, there is nothing permanent”.

Place: Square dedicated to Johannes Hevelius (Skwer Heweliusza), Korzenna Street, opposite the Old Town Hall (Ratusz Staromiejski).

Before World War II, the Old Town Hall formed part of dense Old Town architecture. Its façade, like that of the Main Town Hall (Ratusz Głównomiejski), faced the façades of the tenements forming the frontage of the street – in the case of the Old Town Hall, today’s Korzenna Street.

The municipal square in front of the main façade of the Old Town Hall was created in the course of post-war reconstruction of the city, when the authorities decided not to rebuild the tenements that used to stand opposite it. The square was given a clear compositional axis linked to the symmetrical façade of the Town Hall. On this axis were located: the statue of Johannes Hevelius, the sundial and the Hevelius fountain. Contemporary urban development around the Old Town Hall makes it possible to see it as the central object of an almost square space, cut by the carefully enclosed Radunia Channel, on which the old city mills are built.

Information about the author: Roland Kwaśny is a designer, graduate of the Faculty of Architecture of the Gdańsk University of Technology.

Condition of the object: good

Owner/guardian: Gdańsk Water and Sewage Infrastructure

Author of the entry: inventory made by the Gdańsk University of Technology team, description of the place: Jacek Dominiczak, additional information: Małgorzata Paszylka-Glaza