Forgotten Language
Installed in the lobby of Palo Alto City Hall, Forgotten Language is a suspended sculpture composed of copper and bronze screens interwoven with text. The piece was conceived as a response to both the architecture of the space and the symbolic role of a civic center—a place where ideals of community, justice, and collective purpose are continually renewed.
The structure takes the form of a pitched roof, recalling the image of a house. This architectural gesture serves as a metaphor for shared shelter—a “house within a house”—representing the framework of values and aspirations that support civic life.
Because the work hangs from the ceiling, it invites viewers to look upward, literally and figuratively. Forgotten Languageasks us to reflect on the diminishing power of words—particularly those that articulate our highest human ideals. As sunlight and shadow shift across the metal surfaces, the engraved quotations become legible only through movement, encouraging an act of discovery. This slow, attentive reading mirrors the process by which a community must continually seek, interpret, and embody its guiding principles.
The text includes quotations chosen in collaboration with local residents, featuring words by Anne Frank, Martin Luther King Jr., Maxine Hong Kingston, and John W. Gardner—voices that remind us that civic life, like language itself, must be constantly reimagined and renewed.