Metrobot

Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

Public art

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

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Metrobot is a 27-foot robot-shaped electronic sculpture by Nam June Paik, given to Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center in 1988 for the city's bicentennial. Reinstalled in 2014 on Walnut Street after years in storage, it stands outside the museum at 44 E. Sixth Street.

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Metrobot

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39.10283° N, 84.51182° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

A 27-foot robot stands on the sidewalk outside Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center, and it has carried a 10-cent pay phone in one leg since its 2014 restoration. Metrobot is the work of Nam June Paik, the Korean-American artist CityBeat calls a pioneer of video art, and its boxy pieces are what CityBeat describes as sculptural interpretations of old radio and television cabinets.

Albert Vontz Jr. gave it to the CAC in 1988 to mark Cincinnati's bicentennial; a plaque records the date as 27 October 1988. At the time the museum occupied the second floor of a building on Fifth Street, above a Walgreens, and gallery owner Carl Solway told CityBeat it wanted "a sign that would dramatize their location". Solway proposed Paik, who made a study of a big robot figure. He described it as a metaphor for how people experience the world through electronic media, "a comment about the black heart of technology". Vontz's son had a lighter reading: his father hoped people would see it and laugh.

The CAC moved to its Zaha Hadid-designed building in 2003, leaving the robot behind. In 2009 it was taken off Fifth Street and stored, and after years of debate about where it should go it returned in 2014. CityBeat put the refurbishment at $140,000. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported a new LED ticker and video screen, new neon and a 10-cent pay phone. It was unveiled again at a public ceremony on 10 September 2014, the rededication date on the plaque.

Accounts give slightly different heights: CityBeat and the Ohio Outdoor Sculpture survey say 27 feet, while the Enquirer's 2014 caption said 26.

Metrobot sits outside the museum, so it can be seen without going into the galleries. Visit Cincinnati calls it the CAC's mascot.

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PRACTICAL

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WHAT TO EXPECT

An outdoor sculpture on the sidewalk in front of the Contemporary Arts Center, Walnut Street at Sixth, downtown. Visit Cincinnati describes its video screen and LED ticker. The 2014 restoration fitted a 10-cent pay phone in one leg. The museum's galleries are inside.

ACCESS

On the public sidewalk in front of the Contemporary Arts Center, 44 E. Sixth Street, downtown Cincinnati, on the Walnut Street side. Viewable from the street without entering the museum.

COMMUNITY