Binoculars

Venice, Los Angeles, California, United States

Buildings and structures

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

Giant Binoculars (1991) by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen forms the street entrance of the Frank Gehry-designed former Chiat/Day building at 340 Main Street, Venice, Los Angeles, now leased to Google.

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Binoculars

This pin marks the Big Thing itself. If stopping, choose a safe and legal place nearby.

33.99564° N, 118.47762° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Cars reach the parking garage of this office building by driving between the lenses of a pair of giant binoculars. Giant Binoculars, by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, forms the street façade of the former Chiat/Day building at 340 Main Street in Venice, Los Angeles, and gives the Frank Gehry-designed complex its nickname.

W. P. Carey, which owned the property, said in 2011 that the building was constructed in 1991 as the headquarters of the advertising agency Chiat/Day, with two wings joined by the sculpture. Public Art in Public Places lists the work as 45 feet by 44 feet by 18 feet, built of concrete and cement plaster over both the vehicle and pedestrian entrances. World's Largest Things adds that it has a steel frame, was installed between 1989 and 1991, and is partly accessible from inside. Commercial Observer called it a 44-foot-tall statue in 2025, and W. P. Carey described it as four stories.

How the idea arose is told two ways. Time Out wrote in 2013 that Gehry, looking for a centerpiece, happened to place a model of a binoculars-shaped building in front of the models for his two buildings. World's Largest Things says someone in his office took an unrealised sculpture proposal and set it in place.

Google has leased the building since 2011. The Real Deal reported in January 2026 that it sold for $39.6 million, still entirely leased to Google, whose lease runs to October 2030, according to a CBRE marketing memorandum. The offices behind the sculpture are Google's, so the binoculars are something to see from Main Street.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

Viewable from the public street/sidewalk on Main Street, Venice; the building itself is a private office (Google) and not open to the public interior, but the sculpture forms the exterior entrance and is freely visible.

ACCESS

The sculpture is on the Main Street façade of 340 Main Street, Venice, Los Angeles. The building is entirely leased to Google (The Real Deal, January 2026), so the binoculars are best seen from the street. Vehicles use the garage entrance between the lenses.

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