The beautifully CNC-milled memorial fountain built to honor Princess Diana has received much criticism. The New York Times sums it up .
Diana's Park Memorial Today: A Font of Faultfinding
By SARAH LYALL

Published: November 9, 2004

LONDON, Nov. 8 - Impassive as a marine, the guard patrolling the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain put down his industrial-size leaf strainer and began to describe the many aspects of his job.

"We are required to take out the leaves, because it gets clogged up," he said. "Some of the kids play with conkers" - chestnuts that have fallen from the trees - "but we have to stop them because it makes them run, and they are not allowed to run."

If visitors cannot run, neither can they wade. No dogs allowed. No throwing things into the fountain. No climbing the chain-link fence. No traipsing through the dirt with wet feet, then dipping your feet into the water, because that makes it dirty.

If a visitor even tries to do these things, the guards will appear and yell.

The rules are a recent development at the fountain, a gracious 230-yard Möbius strip of Welsh granite just south of the Serpentine in Hyde Park. In tribute to the many moods of the tempestuous princess, who died in a car accident in Paris in 1997, its water moves in an endless circle, trickling, burbling, cascading and pooling at different points, sometimes agitated, sometimes serene.

The $6.7 million fountain, designed by the American landscape architect Kathryn Gustafson and unveiled in July after years of bitter squabbling over how to honor the memory of Diana, was meant to be more than a provocative piece of sculpture. The idea was that children, for whom the princess had a special affinity, would wade in it, race sticks down its watery lanes and frolic about in its shallow pools.

But it has not worked out that way. The sticks, and a sudden deluge of leaves caused by a blustery rainstorm, clogged the drains and caused flooding and swampy patches. People thronged in as if they were teenagers on spring break, falling down and hurting themselves.

"We had three incidences of slippage in quick succession in one particular area," said John Fearn, a spokesman for the Parks Department.

The accidents panicked the Parks Department, which quickly closed the fountain - the first of several such closures - while its bottom was roughened up so as to be less hazardous. A chain-link fence was erected around the monument to keep the public from swarming in, guards were hired for wading-control purposes and signs were posted setting out the new no-frolicking policy.

"It's still an interactive monument - people can still interact with it," Mr. Fearn said. "People should be able to enjoy it, but they also have to be aware of other people."

The Parks Department says the fountain is a victim of its own success, that it simply could not handle the crush of visitors: 5,000 people an hour when it opened, and now about 1,000 to 2,000 a day, depending on the weather.

But its many critics say that is beside the point. The British newspapers, which initially dismissed it as a glorified drainage ditch, have gleefully seized on its operational hiccups as evidence of the folly of its conception. Elton John, who was a friend of the princess, said it looked like "a sewer" and "one of those water park rides." Some members of the public said it was not what they had hoped for.

"You hear 'fountain' and you think you're going to see something spectacular, maybe a monument or something," groused Elise Mackie, a tourist from New Zealand, visiting the memorial recently. "But it looks like a drain."

No, "it looks like a gully that is overflowing," said Janet Clarke, a visitor from Hampshire. "It isn't beautiful, which Princess Diana was."

In truth, the fountain does not look its best just now, peppered with leaves, discolored in some places under the water, streaked with grass stains, surrounded by a thick ribbon of mud.

Leaves are a serious problem. Not only do the guards have to spend an undue amount of time removing them, like glorified pool cleaners, but the fountain also has to be regularly shut down, drained and scrubbed.

Soon the fountain is to close yet again for an undisclosed amount of time, Mr. Fearn said, while bars are built to prevent people who might fall in from becoming trapped under its bridges - another potential hazard that no one apparently thought of before. Also, the swampy ground around the fountain needs new turf.

But while it has many detractors, there are those who love the fountain, many of whom have written encouraging letters to the Parks Department. Visiting with his four children, Simon Vavasour, 38, said he was surprised at how nice it was, given everything he had heard.

"I thought it would be a real eyesore, but it's fantastic," he said. "It's a British thing if something gets bad publicity, then everyone has to jump on the bandwagon."

It is a bandwagon upon which Justin Baker, visiting from Scarborough, pronounced himself more than comfortable.

"I don't get the impression that it's ever worked for more than three seconds," Mr. Baker said of the monument, expressing particular dismay about the leaf problem. "Anyone who's ever had a garden knows that if you have all these trees, they will be throwing their leaves down."

He was also critical of the areas of muddy turf, unattractively roped off to discourage visitors from slogging through them and making matters worse.

"It's a total disgrace, the way it was managed," Mr. Baker said of the memorial, "and it shows what a load of idiots they are in this country."