The Fontaine du Soleil (Fountain of the Sun) stands at the centre of Place Masséna, a mid-20th-century bronze composition by Alfred Janniot depicting Apollo surrounded by the five known planets. The fountain replaced an earlier one demolished during works to cover the Paillon River, and its modern style was deliberately provocative in a square defined by 19th-century Italianate architecture.
The fountain is Nice's best-known piece of public sculpture and the symbolic heart of the city. Around it, Place Masséna's black and white geometric paving pattern radiates outward, and in the evening the tall resin figures by Jaume Plensa — seated human forms balanced on high poles — are illuminated in shifting colours.