The Four Fauns Fountain (Plaza)

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The Four Fauns Fountain — four bronze faun figures in a small Country Club Plaza courtyard near Nichols Road and Broadway, flanked by wooden benches set with Spanish tile. A characteristic example of the mythological statuary the Nichols Company wove through the Plaza’s pedestrian spaces.

History

The Four Fauns Fountain occupies a small courtyard near Nichols Road and Broadway on the Country Club Plaza, flanked by wooden benches set with Spanish tile.¹ Its four bronze faun figures — fauns being rustic woodland spirits of Roman mythology — are typical of the classical-mythological program J.C. Nichols and the Nichols Company embedded throughout the Plaza’s courtyards and pedestrian plazas.¹²

Architecture + materials

Four bronze faun figures arranged in a courtyard fountain setting, with adjacent Spanish-tile benches integrating the piece into the Plaza’s Spanish Colonial Revival streetscape.¹ Casting details and dimensions are unconfirmed — “.

Current status

Operating, with the Plaza’s seasonal winter off-period (drained by mid-November after the Plaza Lighting Ceremony; refilled in late March or April).¹

Cultural significance

The Four Fauns is a representative node in the Plaza’s mythological statuary program — the same vocabulary that produced the Neptune, Mermaid, Bacchus, and Boy and Frog pieces. Set among Spanish-tile benches, it exemplifies how the Nichols Company integrated European sculpture into everyday pedestrian space rather than treating it as isolated monument.¹

Visiting

Address: Small courtyard near Nichols Road and Broadway, Country Club Plaza, Kansas City, MO 64112
Best time to visit: Spring through fall (seasonal operation)
Public access: Free

Sources

KS.City Wiki — Country Club Plaza Fountains (collection page), which records the Four Fauns Fountain’s courtyard location near Nichols Road and Broadway, the four bronze faun figures, the Spanish-tile benches, and its place in the Nichols mythological statuary program. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵
Sherry Piland & Ellen J. Uguccioni — Fountains of Kansas City: A History and Love Affair (City of Fountains Foundation, 1985). Standard print reference for Plaza fountain provenance. Corroborating institutional documentation: City of Fountains Foundation, https://cityoffountains.org. ↩