World's Largest Rubber Stamp (Free Stamp)

Cleveland's giant rubber stamp was turned away by the company that ordered it, then adopted by the city as a meeting place. Free Stamp, by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, lies in Willard Park beside City Hall at East 9th Street and Lakeside Avenue. Cleveland Historical gives its size as 49 feet long and 28 feet high, weighing 70,000 pounds, in aluminum and steel; Signal Cleveland describes it as 48 feet. The oil company Sohio commissioned it in the early 1980s for its building on Public Square, where it was meant to stand upright. Case Western Reserve art historian Edward Olszewski told Ohio Magazine that executives judged it inappropriate for the new office building and cancelled the project. After BP acquired Sohio in 1986, the sculpture was offered to the city, but it sat in pieces at an Illinois factory for several years while approval for a site was sought. Cleveland Historical says BP agreed to cover installation and maintenance costs.

The artists changed the plan. Instead of standing upright, the stamp lies on its side with the word FREE reversed on its printing face, set on a diagonal that Olszewski says points at the 23rd floor of the old Sohio and BP building. Oldenburg is quoted as saying it looks as if a giant hand had "angrily hurled it several blocks". It was dedicated on 15 November 1991, and Signal Cleveland notes that observers have read many meanings into the word "Free".