World’s Largest Saw [Updated]
Monday, 7th January 2008 by Alex Turnbull
Clearly visible thanks to an enormous shadow, this huge saw in Tokyo looks to be attempting to cut the city in half.
Unfortunately it seems that the person using it has gotten off to a slow start, and must have nipped off for some noodles and a bit of a sit down.
From this ground-level photo you can see that this giant saw really is very big, but also that it's actually a western-style plain-toothed Crosscut saw, and not a Japanese saw, or "nokogiri". I wonder why?
Update: Ron Vogel points out that this is actually "Saw, Sawing", a sculpture by the excellent public artist Claes Oldenburg, whose other works Spoonbridge and Cherry and Dropped Cone have been featured on GSS in the past. Ron also found a kml collection of all of the works by Claes and his wife Coosje van Bruggen, which is well worth checking out.
Thanks to Things in Jars.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
Well, it’s kind of more aesthetically obvious than the Japanese one, I guess. And plusalso, since it’s in Japan, it’s something the locals don’t see very often, even in regular size.
What do you mean, more aesthetically obvious, Dan? Do you own a Japanese saw? If you did, you’d know they even attempt to make the handles traditionally beautiful, according to their own standards. The cut, though, is unbelievable by anyone’s standards – a fraction of the effort and waste.
This bloke is trying to find it:
View Placemark
@Jel – I didn’t say “beautiful” for a reason. If a Japanese saw were shown sticking out the ground in the same manner as this one, it would look more like a pole sticking out the ground than anything else. Japanese saws look very nice, but the handle of this giant saw is starkly different from the Japanese saw, which presumably everyone in Tokyo would be familiar with. This one isn’t as familiar, one might guess, since it’s not a traditional Japanese saw. So it’s more a question of being daring and different and presenting to the public an unfamiliar object in a familiar setting than a question of what’s prettier.
First thing I thought of was that this is another Claes Oldenburg installation. And, it appears that it is:
http://www.oldenburgvanbruggen.com/sawsawing.htm
I believe other Oldenburgs have been featured on this site before. Someday when I have a little more time , I’ll try and locate as many of his sculptures as I can – it would be worth gathering.
And, with a few more minutes of internet research, I see someone has done much of the work already:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/download.php?Number=236498&t=k&om=1
Rob- Even with the size of your friend in Munich, I think the scale would still be off. Plus, he is probably as far as possible from his saw as possible. Cool find, though.
Claes Oldenburg also made an “Inverted Q” representing the rubber industry in Akron, OH, and is on display in the Akron Art Museum. He also made the infamous “Free Stamp” which is on display in downtown Cleveland, OH.
If you do a search for Inverted Q, you will most likely only find results for the soft one. The Akron Art Museum has the hard one, made out of concrete.
Saw, Sawing is now viewable on Street View:
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=h&hl=en&ll=35.630808,139.792963&z=19&layer=c&cbll=35.630968,139.792938&cbp=12,180.69912770105503,,1,0.9424127972789058