Free Stamp

A giant Oldenburg sculpture of an office rubber stamp

Address Willard Park, E. 9th Street

The Free Stamp is a 28-foot-tall steel sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, depicting an outsized office rubber stamp tipped onto its side in a small downtown park. The underside reads, simply, FREE.

The piece has been an unofficial mascot of downtown Cleveland since 1991 and is one of the city's most photographed objects. The park is open at all hours; no admission. Combine with a walk past the nearby Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (free public lobby, with money exhibits) and the Old Stone Church.

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A story
Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen designed the 28-foot rubber stamp in 1985 for the lobby of the BP America headquarters next door, where it would have stood upright reading "FREE" on the underside. After BP was acquired by Sohio, the new owners refused to install it. The artists insisted on a public site, the city took it, and it has sat on its side in the park ever since, the word now visible to passers-by.

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