Located in Chicago’s Market District, Batcolumn has built its image as a famous city landmark. It resembles a huge baseball bat, which was actually where its creator, Claes Oldenburg, got his inspiration from. Oldenburg says that he also got inspiration from Chicago’s skyscrapers, chimney stacks, neo-classical columns, steel bridge cross-bracing and construction cranes. The Batcolumn is almost a hundred feet high and is made of steel and aluminum. It’s different from all other steel structures because it’s painted with enamel, making it a truly eye-catching landmark.

Batcolumn is a marvelous illustration of Oldenburg’s creativity and skill in turning ordinary objects to enlarged works of art. Like the other monuments of Oldenburg, Batcolumn combines a humorous and impudent attitude toward popular objects with meticulous details and handling of scale and proportion. Batcolumn is not merely a plain structure, but an artwork done with great craftsmanship and filled with interesting ideas.