Opinion vary on the meaning of the feline figure wrestling a snake at the center of the Rideout Fountain in the Golden Gate Park Music Concourse, but close inspection of its dental work suggests that it’s a saber-toothed tiger, thus qualifying this one of the most metal images ever cast in stone. Banker’s widow Corrine Rideout used 10 percent of her late husband’s $100,000 estate paying for the piece in 1924, the equivalent of more than $141,000 today.

The fountain provides a serene spot in Golden Gate Park, an excellent reprieve from the myriad of sights at nearby deYoung Museum and California Academy of Arts.

Conveniently, the Jedi Master enshrined outside of the Presidio’s Letterman Digital Arts Center since 2005 demanded very little material to sculpt at life size. According to Atlas Obscura, “At only just over two feet tall, the statue is essentially life-size, and is sculpted to look like the aged version of the wise little gremlin as he appeared in the original Star Wars trilogy, as opposed to the smoother young Jedi CGI’d into the prequel trilogy.”

Sometimes it pays not to overthink. The jet of water springing from the lagoon around Bernard Maybeck’s irreplaceable San Francisco legacy is about as minimalist as it gets, an elegant accent outside of an essentially perfect building. Chances are if it weren’t there nobody would think to ask why such a feature never made it into the scene. But the entire thing would be poorer for the absence, even if nobody ever knew it.

Another Ruth Asawa commission illustrates the point (or perhaps many multi-folded points) about the necessity of water as dramatically as possible in Japantown. When turned off, Asawa’s origami-style blossoms appear perfectly pleasant yet somewhat nondescript. But catch them on the rare occasion when water flows and the transformation is nothing short of delightful, with each sculpted angle taking on a life of its own.

This 1968 Asawa creation enraged noted San Francisco designer Lawrence Halprin, the man behind Ghirardelli Square, Justin Herman Plaza, and Stern Grove. A salty Halprin said 50 years ago that Asawa’s mermaids (modeled on her neighbor Andrea Jepson, hence the piece’s name) and sea turtles were spoiling his vision with their “Victorian overtones.” How dare they.

To be fair, the mermaids (complete with swaddled mermaid baby) are a bit twee. But Halprin’s example shows us that sometimes it pays not to take yourself too seriously and just love something on its own terms.

A replica of the Fontana della Tartarughe circa 1583 in Rome (one of six in the world), originally brought to California to decorate the Hillsborough home of the Crocker banking family and gifted to the city in 1954. Incidentally, Grace Cathedral across the street sits on land the Crockers used to own as well.

Look closely at the photos and you can see that, for reasons the rest of us can only speculate about, some local scofflaw keeps stealing the turtles off this fountain, and after at least two heists since 2007 must have quite a collection by now.

The 41 bronze panels of Asawa’s seven foot tall circa 1972 piece all depict other San Francisco landmarks and neighborhoods,. Asawa recruited 100 local school kids to help her sculpt the original model.

It’s actually not that remarkable compared to, say, her Aurora piece on the Embarcadero, but it makes the list by virtue of sheer public sentiment.

When Apple made the mistake of releasing renderings of its nearby store that didn’t include any reference to it, fans all but ran them out of town on a rail until the tech giant (perhaps bashfully) updated their designs the following year.

Chances are many passersby don’t realize this one even is a fountain, as it seems water hasn’t filled its basins in years. Gold Rush-era singer Lotta Crabtree commissioned the cast iron addition at Market and Kearny. Critics consider it quite an eyesore—in 1947, writer Samuel Dickson called it “not only an unaesthetic monstrosity but the ugliest monument in the city.” But in truth there’s something naively charming about its baroque exertions.

These days it’s most famous for serving as the rallying point for survivors of the 1906 earthquake, and the site of Italian opera star Luisa Tetrazzini’s Christmas Eve recital four years later.

Anthony Guzzardo’s frog-bedecked fountain in the shadow of Redwood Park—which itself sits in the shadow of the Transamerica Pyramid—is perhaps the single singular San Francisco font that best complements it surroundings.

Much the same way the half-acre park full of transplanted redwoods seems to burst right out of the heart of the financial district like some sudden and shocking return to nature, Guzzardo’s upwelling seems to burst unbidden straight out of the ground.

Now here’s a fountain Lawrence Halprin did approve of. In fact, he picked out the “hulking piece of carnelian granite” (as the Cultural Landscape Foundation calls it) himself, from the very same quarry that supplied the material for the FDR Memorial in Washington DC, another Halprin design.

Sometimes called the peacock fountain, this design by Australian architect Bob Woodward has the twin distinctions of being one of the city’s most creative and sophisticated water-based works and of appearing completely and totally useless when turned off.

All fountains are meant to be appreciated whilst running, of course, but in this case there really is no there there without the agua.

If there’s really no such thing as bad publicity, then Armand Vaillancourt and his twisted tableau on the Embarcadero will be sitting pretty for another 45-plus years to come. The Quebecois artist created the love-it/hate-it snaking and cubed fountain in 1971, constructed out of precast concrete square tubes. May it flow forever untouched.

Lawrence Halprin, who designed Embarcadero Plaza, previously known as Justin Herman Plaza from its opening in 1972 until 2017, and hired Vaillancourt to design the fountain, was quoted as saying that if the fountain wasn’t among the “great works of civic art...I am going to slit my throat.”

Of special note, U2 once played a free concert here while atop the fountain in 1987.

Ruth Asawa’s has several work in the city, including this underrated stainless steel fountain that perfectly frames the Bay Bridge. Built in 1986, water falls from the top of the wheel-shaped, origami-inspired sculpture and around its perimeter before splashing into a tiled pool.