Château d'eau Lavalette, Fountain in Grenoble, France

The château d'eau Lavalette is a tiered stone fountain on place Grenette in Grenoble, made of light brown and grey Sassenage stone with two carved basins and bronze cherubs riding dolphins at its base. The water falls from the wide circular upper bowl in thin streams over the fluted underside into the lower basin, while the pedestal shows a seated child above a shell-like basin and carries the words "CHATEAU D'EAU".

The fountain was commissioned under the administration of the marquis Charles Planelli de Lavalette and inaugurated on August 25, 1824, as part of the first network of public fountain pipes in the city. It was originally planned to feed fifteen water conduits, but the project was abandoned for lack of funds.

The name ties back to the marquis de la Valette, the mayor who oversaw the fountain's creation, and the four dolphins are a nod to the old province of Dauphiné. Today the surrounding square is a meeting point where people pause by the water, sit on nearby benches, and move between the tram stops and the surrounding stores.

The fountain sits on a large open pedestrian square, so you can walk all the way around it and get close to the stone and bronze details without crossing any traffic. The closest tram stops are just a short walk away, and the area stays busy with shops and cafés nearby.

The original water jet could shoot up more than twenty meters high, but neighbors complained about getting splashed and the noise, so the pressure was later reduced. Two different inauguration years appear in local records, 1824 and 1827, reflecting how the fountain's early history was documented in conflicting ways.