Goumenissa was the area chosen by the French Army of the East to become its headquarters in WWI. The French Army was also involved in many peaceful projects. One of them was the fountain that was built in the place of an older one, central square in 1918, constituting, thus, a testament of the presence of the French in the city and the wider region. It bears the inscription “Passerby remember the French soldier – Passanger soviens toi le soldat francais”.
Alexandre Jouvenaux wanted to build something that combined the elements of the Macedonian region and the French building technique he was aware of. Thus, for construction of the fountain he employed red bricks, which were widely used in the construction of buildings in the town he lived before the Great War, Lys Lez Lannoy in northern France. On the fountain’s façade there is a decoration by rosettes, one of the elements encountered in Macedonian architecture.
