Binoculars Building, Postmodern office building in Venice, Los Angeles, United States.
The Binoculars Building is a dark brown office block on Main Street in Venice, Los Angeles, designed by Frank Gehry and completed in 1991. Its street façade carries Giant Binoculars, a sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen: two upright cylinders with rounded tops on thick angled legs, their surfaces cut with vertical recessed slots. The binoculars span the car and pedestrian entrance, with the parking garage entry between the two tubes; to the right a broad roof slab projects over a row of slanted fins behind dark glazing.
Frank Gehry designed the building for the advertising agency Chiat/Day; construction ran from 1985 to 1991, delayed for several years after hazardous materials were found on the site and had to be removed. Google became the tenant in 2011 and added two neighboring buildings to expand its Los Angeles presence.
The giant binoculars adorning the facade are artworks by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, transforming the building into a public art installation. You can experience this sculpture directly from the street as part of the neighborhood's everyday landscape.
The building sits on Main Street and is easily visible from the street, with the art installation clearly viewable from outside. A notable feature is the parking garage entrance integrated through the binocular structure itself.
The Giant Binoculars (1991) by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen double as the building's entrance: the parking garage ramp passes between the two cylinders, while pedestrians walk beneath the sculpture. The 75,000-square-foot building opened only after hazardous materials were removed from the site, which delayed work for several years.
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