Fort Worth Water Gardens
Texas
The roughly four-acre Fort Worth Water Gardens opened on October nineteenth, nineteen seventy-four, as a gift from the Amon Carter Foundation to the people of the city. Ruth Carter Johnson, foundation president, chose celebrated New York architect Philip Johnson to reclaim several blighted blocks between the convention center and an elevated freeway. Johnson designed three distinct water environments on multiple levels: a cascading active pool where water sheets down seventy steps of rough concrete, a quiet reflective pool ringed by trees, and an aerating pool with hundreds of upward jets.
The design won immediate national recognition. Moviegoers know it from the nineteen seventy-six science fiction film Logan's Run, which used the active pool as a futuristic set. Johnson called the project one of his favorite works.
