World's Largest Split Button

Penn's Split Button is a giant white button, cracked in two and tilted off level, that students sit on and children play on and under. Claes Oldenburg made it with his wife and collaborator, the art historian Coosje van Bruggen, and it was installed in front of Van Pelt Library in 1981. The Association for Public Art says it was commissioned in 1979 under the Redevelopment Authority's Percent for Art programme and partly funded by a National Endowment for the Arts grant; Penn Today adds that the university and private donors also paid, says the university commissioned it in December 1978 and gives the 1981 cost as $100,000.

The first plan was a plain grey-black button lying flat as a bench. After the design was approved, the artists added the fracture and tilt and painted it white, according to the Association for Public Art. The same source says Oldenburg speculated that the nearby statue of Benjamin Franklin is missing a button. Penn Today says Oldenburg told the Philadelphia Inquirer in June 1981 that the crack stands for the Schuylkill River and divides the button into four parts, a nod to William Penn's original design of the city. The Penn Art Collection offers a campus legend instead: a button popped from Franklin's vest and rolled along Locust Walk until it split.