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Noguchi, 35-year-old Japanese-American artist, and winner of the National Competition for the Associated Press Building plaque, the huge panel is the largest metal bas relief ever cast. Designed as a symbol of "News" the panel depicts in bold and simple lines the heads and torsos of five men. Four of them are working with the swift tools of modern journalism--the teletype, wirephoto, camera, and telephone, while the fifth one carries the pad and pencil--trademark of all reporters. For eight months, Noguchi and workers in the Boston foundry of the General Alloys Company have been struggling with the experimental problem of casting the huge panel which measures approximately I7 X 22 feet. The full-scale plaster model was first divided into nine sections. One of the chief technical problems of casting each of these sections was that the stainless steel must be poured at such terrific heat that it would destroy any ordinary sand mold. H.H. Harris, president of General Alloys, explained recently, "We solved this problem by rigging up a couple of 'bath tub' reservoirs on top of our mold, and then building a whole network of runners that would carry the metal quickly and evenly over the whole surface. The 'bath tubs' were fitted with big plugs that could be pulled out simultaneously, and in one explosive second the casting is completed, The action is so fast that there is not time for the sand to be disturbed by the white-hot metal." The huge sections were then polished and finished. Using precision power tools, the edges were trimmed to the exactness of I/IOOO of an inch. The giant panel was then welded into three sections. Noguchi worked side by side with the men in the foundry during the entire period, and said that the operation was "like working on a tremendously tough and delicate watch spring--every time you touched one small part of it the whole thing would shift." The three sections of the panel arrived by truck in New York from the Boston foundry of the General Alloys Company and were hoisted by cranes into the space already built for it above the entrance of the Associated Press Building. Like a giant puzzle, the three sections were bolted to a thirty-three inch steel "I" beam above the doorway and slipped into place one on top of the other. R. H. O.
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