El Alamein Fountain, War memorial fountain in Kings Cross, Australia

The El Alamein Fountain is a modern memorial in Fitzroy Gardens that features a bronze sphere with fine spray nozzles set on a hexagonal base. The structure uses brass pipes and specialized spray heads to create a sphere-shaped water pattern that shifts with air currents.

The fountain was commissioned as a memorial to the Australian 9th Division, which fought in the first and second battles of El Alamein in 1942. Designed by Robert Woodward and Phill Taranto of Woodward and Woodward, it was built from 1959 to 1961 and opened by Lord Mayor Harry Jensen. It won the inaugural RAIA NSW Chapter Civic Design Award in 1964 and was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 14 January 2011.

The name recalls the Battle of El Alamein, where Australian soldiers fought and died during World War II. This place now serves as a quiet memorial where visitors can honor the memory of those soldiers.

The fountain sits in the upper pool of a chain of four stepped basins on the sloping south-western edge of Fitzroy Gardens, off Macleay Street in Kings Cross. The ground falls gently eastward, so the lower pools step down the slope. It is illuminated at night.

The water spray effect is created by a clever arrangement of brass pipes and specialized nozzles that together form a shifting sphere shape. This technical design was innovative for its era and shows how architecture can represent movement through water in real time.