Giant Three-Way Plug (Oldenburg)

Claes Oldenburg's Giant Three-Way Plug, Scale A lies partly buried in the lawn in front of the Saint Louis Art Museum, a household object enlarged to monument scale. Claes Oldenburg made it in 1970 to 1971, and the museum says it was installed on the north side of the museum in 1971, shortly after construction. It measures 57 by 116 by 78 inches and weighs 3,500 pounds; the body is Cor-Ten steel, a low-maintenance steel the museum says copes with the Midwest's erratic weather, and the prongs are gold-toned bronze. The museum says the plug stands at almost five feet tall and compares its weight to a subcompact SUV. The museum says it is the second of three plug editions, all fabricated at Lippincott, a sculpture fabricator in New England. The first went to Oberlin College in Ohio, and the third was made in 1973 for a Philadelphia collector who displayed it at home until 2010, when it went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Oldenburg described the sculpture as resembling “an implement left over from a war, returning to nature”, and said the plug reminded him of historic architecture; its arching lines and recessed spaces, the museum says, complement the classical design of the Main Building. It is a gift of the Shoenberg Foundation. The museum's collection record listed it as on view outdoors at the north entrance in November 2025, and Forest Park Forever gives the park's hours as 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.