House of Words

As a part of Bureau Spectacular

Grand Park, Los Angeles

2021

“An outdoor installation, functioning as an oversized musical instrument at the Grand Park in Los Angeles.
Like a friendly colossus that hovers over the public, this interactive structure listens to its visitors and re-state what it hears in its own gentle but deep voice. While standing underneath the belly of this behemoth, a person can whisper a secret into the receptors. However, like a bad secret-keeper, this creature carelessly echoes everything back into the ether, albeit very quietly and in a heavily distorted and unrecognizable utterance.
In the final scene of In the Mood for Love (2000), the protagonist whispers a secret into a temple wall and seals it with mud—a private act of healing through architecture. The House of Words offers a public counterpart: it scrambles spoken confessions like a shredder, releasing them as incomprehensible, birdsong-like sounds. This therapeutic transformation turns the structure into a speech monster—a listener that digests burdens, offering Angelenos a place to unburden their stories.“

Team: Ekin Bilal, Jimenez Lai