Thank you, community members, for participating by voting for the final mural design! Stay tuned for updates on the progress of the project!

This design celebrates the beauty and strength of Oakland’s diversity. It aims to break the paradigm of redlining and systemic racism and cultivate a new social and cultural awareness of unity and inclusivity.

The many cultures and ethnicities that make up Oakland’s identity are reflected with graphic and textile patterns representing them. Step by step, individual complementary and contrasting patterns compose a cultural mosaic.

​

Patterns represent cultures in such rich ways: as a means of communication, often signifying cultural values, proverbs or messages, to mark special occasions and customs, as symbolic representations and of course, as a form of identity.

The design contains a wide range of colors and styles. To harmonize them, each step picks up colors from its adjacent steps. Repetition sequences based on the numbers of the Fibonacci series add an additional layer of visual coherence.

​

There is a bit of whimsy, with animal motif patterns to engage perhaps a young treasure hunter, as well as a sunflower motif on the base step of each of the three flights of stairs.

​