I found the Randall Park Mall fountain on a Tuesday afternoon in late October, three years after the last anchor store closed. The water was off — had been for months — but the basin was still filled. Stagnant, mirror-still, reflecting the skylight forty feet above in a sheet of cyan so quiet it looked painted on. Twelve brass coins lay at the bottom, each one placed by someone who still believed a dead fountain could grant a wish.
The Geometry of Gathering
Every fountain built inside an American mall between 1965 and 1985 followed roughly the same architectural grammar: an oval or circular basin, recessed into terrazzo, surrounded by a ring of marble bench seating. The designers — mostly small firms in Columbus and Stamford — understood something the architects of big-box retail later forgot. People need a place to sit that is not selling them anything.
The fountain didn't care if you bought something. It only asked that you sit, that you watch the water, that you let the afternoon dissolve.