"For the Gentle Wind Doth Move Silently, Invisibly"

How it Started

The art was commissioned by the Cleveland Mall Plaza Beautification Fund to honor the 100th anniversary of architect Daniel Burnham’s 1903 Group Plan for the City of Cleveland. The fund, established by Leonard C. Hanna in the 1960s to maintain and improve the Mall and the Hanna Fountains, approached Cleveland Public Art to help activate the space with a public art installation. Cleveland Public Art partnered with ParkWorks on this project for a period of two years.

About the Work

New York Artist Brian Tolle, known for his Irish Hunger Memorial in New York’s Battery Park City, was selected by a jury of local arts and civic professionals to create a two-year art installation on Mall B in Downtown Cleveland. The project consisted of twelve 8-foot-tall neo-classical urns, which were machine milled from hi-density Styrofoam, painted, and coated with polyurethane. With their tilt based on exact measurements of wind patterns off of Lake Erie, the urns looked as though they could have been a part of the original 1903 plan, except slightly skewed by the wind patterns from the lake. The urns were planted with seasonal foliage and flowers.