The Roth Fountain will feature steer heads
that once decorated the Livestock Exchange Building in the
Stockyards area of Sioux City. (Staff photo by Jim
Lee)
When businesswoman Regina Roth heard about a
proposal to design a fountain reflecting the Prairie School of
design, she wasn't, to say the least, sold on the idea.
"I
had been thinking about a big, beautiful gushing fountain like what
they have in Chicago," she said. "These guys were talking about this
prairie style thing, and I thought, 'yuk.'
"They did some
renderings of it and I still wasn't all that impressed -- until they
started talking about how they wanted to incorporate some of the
terra cotta and bullheads from the Stockyards. It started to make
sense that it would reflect the history of this community."
After she saw the three-dimensional model made
by sculptor Kirk Hoefling with the assistance of artist Steven
Blenderman, Regina and her husband, Eldon, changed their minds. They
realized the fountain could become a signature piece for Sioux
City.
"I darn near starting bawling," she declared. "It is
just so beautiful."
The Roths agreed to foot the bill for the
design and construction of the fountain as a gift to the community.
The Roth Fountain will be built on the pedestrian plaza northeast of
the new Promenade Cineplex, near Fourth and Virginia streets.
Construction will start in April.
"We wanted to do something
that would be magnificent," Regina Roth explained. "At this stage of
our lives, we didn't want to scrimp. We wanted it to be something
unique."
Of the cost, Roth remarked, "It's a very significant
amount."
The creation of a signature fountain in Sioux City
has been a long-time dream of Debi Durham, president of the
Siouxland Chamber of Commerce.
"Every time I have been on a
trip, I came back with a little bit of fountain envy," she joked.
"You see them in many cities. They have a certain metropolitan feel
to them. They become a gathering police for people. They create a
sense of community. I kept asking, 'Why can't we have a fountain?'
"
While the Roths talked to Durham about their wish to donate
a fountain to the community, Durham put them in touch with
Blenderman and Hoefling. On their own, the pair had created their
own vision of a fountain to celebrate and honor those who had worked
in the livestock industry in Sioux City for more than a
century.
They had worked on the plan without a client or any
expectation it would be built.
"It was divine intervention
that put us together," Regina Roth concluded. "They had this
wonderful idea and nobody to pay for it. We wanted to do something
and didn't have a design."
Fountain inspiration
The idea for the design came to Blenderman in a
flash.
"On Dec. 2, 2002, I was watching the news on TV when
Councilman Marty Dougherty came on and said somebody should do
something if they wanted to save the Livestock Exchange
Building."
That building, once a keystone of commerce in the
bustling Stockyards that had employed thousands, had been heavily
damaged in a 1998 fire. The fire destroyed the original 1894 portion
of the building, leaving only the 1915 Livestock National Bank part
standing. The city decided it had to raze the
structure.
"And, that's when it came to me about doing a
fountain utilizing some of the design," Blenderman said.
"Originally, I thought the fountain would go in the Stockyards as a
memorial. I did a quick sketch. I got ahold of
Kirk."
Hoefling added, "We're good friends and often critique
each other's work. All the critiques led to this
design."
They wanted to use four of the steers' heads terra
cotta panels on the bank. Each panel weighs a hefty 125 bovine
pounds.
They wanted to use other decorative terra cotta
pieces from the bank.They came up with an innovative idea to have
the steers' heads mounted on a four-sided fountain, with the water
spouting out of their mouths.
Their inspiration came not only
from the Exchange Building, designed by renowned architect William
L. Steele, but from the use of terra cotta on fountains Blenderman
had seen in Europe.
"We sat on it for about a year,"
Blenderman said. "We really didn't know where to go with
it."
As the city made plans to demolish the Exchange
Building, Blenderman and Hoefling arranged to meet with Gretchen
Schalge at City Hall. She is the community development
coordinator.
"We figured there would be no fountain without
the terra cotta pieces and they had to be saved before the building
was torn down," Hoefling said.
Blenderman interjected, "As
artists, we saw how beautiful these terra cotta pieces are and we
wanted to save them.
"Gretchen was very receptive. She told
us there is a fountain planned for Phase 3 of the Promenade theater
project. She suggested we develop the idea
further."
Blenderman added, "Nobody commissioned us to do
this. We were just doing it on our own."
After developing the
design further, Hoefling and Blenderman showed the proposal to
businesswoman Cindy Waitt and Roger Caudron, executive director of
Downtown Partners.
Durham told the Roths about the fountain
idea and set up a meeting last May between the designers and Regina
Roth. Roth gave them the go-ahead to continue with the design and
asked for some cost estimates.
Hoefling and Blenderman
enlisted the help of Troy Kamp, a Minneapolis architect, to draft
cost projections.
"We came to the conclusion we had to have a
3-D model to show Regina so she would have a better understanding of
what it would look like," Blenderman said.
For 2 1/2 months,
Hoefling painstakingly created that model.
"I sculpted all
the terra cotta pieces in clay. It's all made to scale. I made the
molds and painted them. It was pretty tedious," he
admitted.
Roth said she was concerned the fountain would be
too large for the Promenade's plaza.
"To satisfy my concern,
they went and staked it out and put some ladders up to show how tall
and wide it would be. It's 32-foot wide."
Once she pictured
the fountain on that site, she was sold.
Prairie School
look
It is no accident that a viewer seeing their 3-D
model for the first time will be reminded of the Woodbury County
Courthouse. Steele also designed that historic building.
The
pair wanted the terra cotta pieces more at eye level where
pedestrians could view them. On the bank, people often did not look
up to see them on the upper floors -- or couldn't see the details
because of their distance from the ground.
Hoefling and
Blenderman decided to replicate the bricks used on the livestock
building.
"Quite a few buildings in Sioux City were made out
of these bricks -- including St. Casimir's. We discovered that the
pollution from the passing freight trains had darkened the bricks on
the exchange building through the years," Hoefling noted. "One of
the good things about the pollution was that it created a beautiful
patina on the terra cotta."
The artists searched for a
supplier who would make the bricks to order since they had to be a
larger size that the bricks used in construction today. They needed
a smaller number than most construction projects --
7,500.
The bricks are called "tapestry," because, Blenderman
said, "They have a kind of nubby surface. Each brick is
different."
The found a manufacturer in Tennessee.
In
trying to figure out how many bricks they would need, Blenderman
laughed as he described dusting off his rusty math skills to do the
calculations. He said he would have made his teachers proud who
claimed he would need arithmetic some day.
Other granite and
terra cotta pieces will be fabricated for the fountain. The fountain
will sit on a cobblestone granite plinth.
Dancing
water
A key part of the fountain will the water
features.
"To make it architecturally entertaining, we wanted
to bring the sound of water into it, but it also has to be beautiful
when it's static," Hoefling said.
The water will flow out of
the steers' heads into four cache basins, dropping into two bronze
shoots, which will funnel the water into the pool.
Sixteen
aerated foam water jets will shoot water into the air around the
central 16 1/2-foot tower.
"It's something you'll hear from a
block away," he predicted.
Plumbing will be housed in an
underground vault, buried seven feet deep underground. A hatch will
allow for easy access to the pumps' generators.
Water in the
reflecting pool will be 12 inches deep. A series of underground
lights will illuminate the mosaic floor, made out of ceramic and
glass tiles.
"We got the idea for the design from seeing the
cast iron balustrade on the second story landing" in the Exchange
Building," Blenderman said. "William Steele seemed to have a
maverick quality to some of his designs."
Seven different
shades of emerald green tiles, along with gold metallic ones, will
create the Greek key design.
"Particularly at night with the
lights, it will have a shimmering effect," Hoefling predicted. "The
water is going to be dancing and alive."
The pool coping wall
encircling the fountain will provide seating on eight
sides.
"We hope people will take ownership of this,"
Blenderman said.
The Sentinels
Creating an
entrance area to the fountain will be four, 10-foot, 10-inch tall
pylons made out of the same brick with terra cotta and alabaster
features and bronze lights. The terra cotta will echo the large
diamond pattern originally found on those cornice pieces of the
exchange building.
Bronze commemorative plaques will be
affixed to two of the pylons -- one recognizing the Roths and the
other telling the history of the Livestock National Bank and
Exchange Building.
Hoefling and Blenderman said they have a
place in their hearts for those who toiled in the Stockyards because
of their family ties.
"It's our history, too," Hoefling
emphasized. "My father, Vince Hoefling, worked for the Frank E.
Scott Commission Co. and later owned the company. He sold the last
livestock there before the yards closed."
Blenderman's
maternal grandfather, John Wilhelm, worked as a commission man for
Swanson, Gilmore & Walsh, moving to Sioux City in 1910 from
Wisconsin.
"We're kind of putting a face on the Stockyards,"
Hoefling remarked.
The Roths also have ties to the livestock
industry. They own Beef Products, Inc.
Bids will be let in
early February. InVision Architecture is handling the construction
documents. The Siouxland Chamber Foundation is serving as developer
of the project on behalf of the city and will oversee construction.
After the fountain is finished this July or August, the chamber will
turn it over to the city, Durham said.
"It's a dream come
true for us," Blenderman stressed. "We have put our heart and souls
into this."
Durham asserted, "I think you'll see this
fountain as a beginning of a branding of future things in Sioux
City. It sets us apart from any other community in the state of
Iowa. It embraces our history and also embraces our
future."
