Dancing fountains, 172 of them, fill the plaza at the base of Fountain Place, the 60-story tower above you. It rises to a structural height of 720 ft (220 m), making it the fifth-tallest building in Dallas and the 15th-tallest in Texas. The tower you face was completed in 1986, the work of Pei Cobb Freed & Partners, Henry N. Cobb, Harry Weese Associates, and WZMH Architects.
Original plans called for twin towers — the second rotated 90 degrees across the garden on the adjacent lot — but the collapse of the Texas oil, banking and real estate industry and the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s halted that vision. Today a new 45-story sibling, AMLI Fountain Place, has been built to the northwest on the adjacent lot. This building was named for the array of 172 dancing fountains in the plaza at its base, with a fully automated water show as the centerpiece.
Those fountains were an extreme undertaking and the first concept of their kind on such a large scale; WET Design company was brought in, in its first major project since the founders left Disney to team up. Notice all 172 fountains, choreographed by WET Design in its first project after leaving Disney.