Appearing Rooms

To coincide with the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall the spectacular fountain Appearing Rooms by Danish artist Jeppe Hein returns to the Southbank Centre. A hugely popular installation last summer, the water sculpture invites visitors of all ages to join in and become part of this playful work of art.

The fountain will once again be installed on the terrace outside the Royal Festival Hall attracting visitors to walk into this aquatic pavilion, made of walls of water which rise and fall randomly. As the participants walk through the 'rooms', they must interact with the patterns of rising and falling water if they are to leave the space without getting wet.

Fountains originally appeared on the site in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain, and this summer there will be two fountains at Southbank Centre. A new fountain by German artist, Klaus Weber, The Big Giving, will be unveiled at the end of June. In this series of sculptures the artist and a number of his friends are cast rising out of, or simultaneously sinking into, volcanic-looking mounds of rock. Their heads and hands protrude from the stone and streams of water gush from each of the figures, spouting from mouths, eyes, ears and armpits.