Fritz Koenig sculpture damaged in September 11 attacks
The Sphere
(officially
Große Kugelkaryatide N.Y.
, also known as
Sphere at Plaza Fountain
,
WTC Sphere
or
Koenig Sphere
) is a monumental cast
bronze sculpture
by German artist
Fritz Koenig
(1924?2017).
[2]
The world's largest bronze sculpture of modern times stood between the twin towers on the
Austin J. Tobin Plaza
of the
World Trade Center
in New York City from 1972 until the
September 11 attacks
. The work, weighing more than 20 tons, was the only remaining work of art to be recovered largely intact from the ruins of the collapsed twin towers. After being dismantled and stored near a hangar at
John F. Kennedy International Airport
, the sculpture was the subject of the 2001 documentary
Koenig's Sphere
. Since then, the bronze sphere has become a memorial for the attacks.
The spherical
caryatid
was installed in
Battery Park
between 2002 and 2017, when the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
moved it to
Liberty Park
, overlooking the
September 11 Memorial
and its original location.
[2]
The sculpture, rededicated at its permanent location on August 16, 2017, has been kept in the
badly damaged condition it was found in
after the September 11 attacks.
Artwork
[
edit
]
The Sphere
on Austin J. Tobin Plaza (1972?2001)
The creation of the originally titled
Große Kugelkaryatide N.Y. / Great Caryatid Sphere N.Y.
(
catalogue raisonne
Sk 416) dates to the 1960s and early 1970s. At that time Fritz Koenig was established as an artist in the United States. After the World Trade Center's architect
Minoru Yamasaki
had seen the work of the German sculptor in the George W. Staempfli Gallery in New York, he asked Koenig to create a sculpture including a fountain for the space between the World Trade Center's twin towers, which were then
under construction
. In 1967, Koenig was awarded the contract by the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
as the client and property owner of the development.
[3]
[1]
The Sphere
falls into Koenig's creative phase of various
caryatids
, in which Koenig stages a struggle with constricting or burdensome geometrizing masses. With his sculpture Koenig wanted to mark a formal contrast to the skyscrapers. Mounted on a
porphyry disk
measuring 3.3 feet (1.0 m) high, with a diameter of 82 feet (25 m), the sphere rotated once around its axis within 15 minutes. One hundred and sixty gallons of water (600 liters) per second flowed out of the nozzles of the associated Plaza Fountain. The well water was sprayed in a ring running around the sphere onto a flat surface adjacent to the sphere. This should give the impression that the spherical caryatid rises out of the water. The highly complex technology of the system was designed at the
Institute for Hydrology and River Basin Management
at the
Technical University of Munich
, where Koenig had been a lecturer since 1964. The largest bronze sculpture of modern times weighs over twenty tons, is 25 feet (7.6 m) high and has a diameter of 17 feet (5.2 m). Koenig called it his "biggest child".
[4]
The sculpture was made between late 1968/early 1969 to the end of 1971 in
Ganslberg
near
Landshut
, where Fritz Koenig lived. The work on the plaster model in its original size required the construction of a new workshop hall near Koenig's homestead and actual studio. Koenig was supported in the production of his work of art by his long-time assistant Hugo Jahn and the South Tyrolean sculptor Josef Plankensteiner. From 1969 the plaster elements of the sphere, dismantled into 67 individual parts, were cast in
bronze
in the Munich art foundry Hans Mayr. Then the individual bronze segments with a total combined weight of seventeen tons were brought to the workshop in Ganslberg and assembled there.
After four years of planning and manufacturing, the finished sculpture was dismantled again and transported to the port of
Bremen
with low loaders and trucks. The bronze elements of the sphere and the base were put together again on site so that Koenig's sculpture as a whole could set off by sea across the Atlantic to New York in a specially made, oversized wooden transport box. In 1971,
The Sphere
finally installed on the World Trade Center's plaza and ceremoniously unveiled a little later. The sculpture, including the fountain, marked the center of the development and was a popular meeting place for New Yorkers. The work of art was dedicated to "world peace through trade". The original name "Große Kugelkaryatide N.Y." did not catch on with the New Yorkers. They called the spherical sculpture "Koenig Sphere" or simply "The Sphere".
[4]
Relocation after 9/11
[
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]
Immediately after the attacks
[
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]
The Sphere
amidst the ruins of 9/11 (2001)
After the
September 11 attacks
, upon recovery from the rubble pile the sculpture was dismantled and sent to storage near
John F. Kennedy International Airport
. Its extraction had been widely covered in local news media in the
New York metropolitan area
. As it was a memorable feature of the Twin Towers site, there was much discussion about using it in a memorial, especially since it seemed to have survived the attacks relatively intact.
[5]
German film director
Percy Adlon
, who had twice previously devoted films to Koenig, made
Koenigs Kugel
(
Koenig's Sphere
) at a time when the sculpture's fate was still uncertain. In the film, the artist and the director visit
Ground Zero
five weeks after the attacks as the former retells the story of its creation. At first, Koenig opposed reinstalling
The Sphere,
considering it "a beautiful corpse".
[6]
Relocation to Battery Park
[
edit
]
The sculpture was eventually returned to Manhattan, and on March 11, 2002, six months to the day after the attacks, it was re-erected in Battery Park, near the
Hope Garden
, several blocks away from where it once stood. Koenig himself supervised the work; it took four engineers and 15
ironworkers
to create a new base. Mayor
Michael Bloomberg
, his predecessor
Rudy Giuliani
and other local officials spoke at a
ceremony
rededicating it as a memorial to the victims. "It was a sculpture, now it's a monument", Koenig said, noting how the relatively fragile metal globe had mostly survived the cataclysm. "It now has a different beauty, one I could never imagine. It has its own life ? different from the one I gave to it."
[7]
A plaque alongside
The Sphere
read as follows:
For three decades, this sculpture stood in the plaza of the World Trade Center. Entitled
The Sphere
, it was conceived by artist
Fritz Koenig
as a symbol of world peace. It was damaged during the tragic events of September 11, 2001, but endures as an icon of hope and the indestructible spirit of this country.
The Sphere
was placed here on March 11, 2002 as a temporary memorial to all who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks at the
World Trade Center
.
This
eternal flame
was ignited on September 11, 2002 in honor of all those who were lost. Their spirit and sacrifice will never be forgotten.
[8]
Relocation to Liberty Park
[
edit
]
According to
NYC Parks
spokeswoman Vickie Karp, the city was looking to relocate
The Sphere
in summer 2012, when construction began to restore Battery Park's lawn, requiring the sculpture to be moved. The
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
(PANYNJ), which owns
The Sphere
, considered placing the sculpture in
Liberty Park
, located between the 90 West Street building and the
World Trade Center Memorial
site. Liberty Park would not be constructed until at least 2014, so a temporary location was needed to place
The Sphere
. By February 2011, PANYNJ had not made an official final decision on where to place the sculpture once Battery Park construction commenced, requiring the sculpture to be moved, possibly into storage.
[9]
[10]
An online petition created by 9/11 families demanding the return of
The Sphere
to the 9/11 Memorial gained more than 7,123 signatures as of March 23, 2011
[update]
.
[11]
Officials from the 9/11 Memorial stated that they did not want any 9/11 artifacts cluttering the 8-acre memorial plaza.
[9]
[10]
On June 28, 2012, PANYNJ expressed support for the effort to move
The Sphere
to the plaza of the
National September 11 Memorial & Museum
.
[12]
After a public comment by Michael Burke during a meeting of the
Board of Commissioners
, Executive Director Patrick J. Foye stated:
The point that Mr. Burke made resonates with many people in New York and New Jersey and many people here at the Port Authority, especially given the fact that 84 members of the Port Authority family were killed on 9/11. This is an artifact that survived and was affected by the horrors of 9/11, and placing it on the memorial plaza, we think, is entirely appropriate.
?
Patrick J. Foye, head of Port Authority, who supported making
The Sphere
a part of the 9/11 Memorial,
The Washington Post
When Liberty Park opened in June 2016, the question had not been resolved.
[13]
On July 22, 2016, the Port Authority voted to move the sculpture to Liberty Park,
[14]
[15]
and in August 2017, PANYNJ relocated the sculpture to Liberty Park.
[2]
[16]
On September 6, 2017, the Sphere was unveiled in its permanent home in Liberty Park, overlooking the World Trade Center site.
[17]
[18]
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey held a ceremony at Liberty Park on November 29, 2017, to mark its return to the World Trade Center site.
[2]
Media
[
edit
]
Documentary
[
edit
]
In his documentary
Koenigs Kugel - der deutsche Bildhauer Fritz Koenig im Trummerfeld von Ground Zero
("Koenig's Sphere"), the German director
Percy Adlon
shows Koenig's encounter with his badly damaged work of art a few days after the September 11 attacks and its subsequent conversion to a memorial. In it, Koenig recalls
The Sphere
's
origin and talks about transience and the transformation of art following the attacks.
[19]
Book
[
edit
]
A limited edition of the book
THE SPHERE - Vom Kunstwerk zum Mahnmal / THE SPHERE - From Artwork to Memorial
was published in June 2021, the 50th anniversary of the sculpture's installation.
[20]
[21]
See also
[
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]
Notes
[
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
"Fritz Koenig, sculptor whose art withstood 9/11 attack, dies"
.
Associated Press
. February 24, 2017. Archived from
the original
on September 21, 2019
. Retrieved
September 9,
2019
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Otterman, Sharon (November 29, 2017).
"Battered and Scarred, 'Sphere' Returns to 9/11 Site"
.
The New York Times
.
- ^
Adlon, Percy
(2001).
"Koenig's Sphere"
. Leora Films, Inc. Archived from
the original
on September 28, 2010
. Retrieved
September 9,
2019
.
- ^
a
b
Klein, Holger A. (May 11, 2015).
"From Ganslberg to Manhattan Fritz Koenig's Great Caryatid Sphere N.Y. (1967?1972)"
(PDF)
. Columbia University.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on January 20, 2022
. Retrieved
May 10,
2021
.
- ^
Kolker, Robert (November 28, 2005).
"The Grief Police; No one says the 9/11 families aren't entitled to their pain. But should a small handful of them have the power to reshape ground zero?"
.
New York Magazine
. Retrieved
March 24,
2010
.
- ^
Percy Adlon (December 15, 2001). "Koenig's Sphere: The German Sculptor Fritz Koenig at Ground Zero". Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR).
- ^
Hargittai, I.; Hargittai, M. (2017).
New York Scientific: A Culture of Inquiry, Knowledge, and Learning
. Oxford University Press. p. 264.
ISBN
978-0-19-876987-3
. Retrieved
September 11,
2019
.
- ^
"Memorial Plaque at Battery Park, beneath
The Sphere
Sculpture, now a Temporary Memorial"
.
photo
. Flickr. May 11, 2007
. Retrieved
March 24,
2010
.
- ^
a
b
Shapiro, Julie (February 28, 2011).
"9/11 Family Members Start Petition to Save World Trade Center Sphere"
. Digital Network Associates dba DNAinfo.com. Archived from
the original
on March 1, 2011
. Retrieved
February 28,
2011
.
- ^
a
b
Chung, Jen (February 28, 2011).
"World Trade Center Sphere's Uncertain Fate Worries 9/11 Families"
. Gothamist LLC. Archived from
the original
on February 28, 2011
. Retrieved
February 28,
2011
.
- ^
Haskell, Peter (July 5, 2011).
"Effort Underway To Return Iconic Sphere Sculpture To World Trade Center"
. CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc
. Retrieved
July 5,
2011
.
- ^
"Port Authority head supports making WTC sphere that survived 9/11 attacks part of memorial"
.
The Washington Post
. Associated Press. June 28, 2012. Archived from
the original
on November 8, 2018
. Retrieved
June 29,
2012
.
- ^
Barone, Vincent (June 30, 2016).
"Liberty Park renews debate around Koenig Sphere's home"
.
amNewYork
. Retrieved
July 10,
2016
.
- ^
Plagianos, Irene (July 21, 2016).
"Koenig Sphere Moving to WTC Liberty Park, Port Authority Says"
.
DNAinfo New York
. Archived from
the original
on August 18, 2017
. Retrieved
October 1,
2017
.
- ^
Egbert, Bill (July 22, 2016).
"Port Authority votes to move Koenig Sphere to Liberty Park"
.
Downtown Express
. Archived from
the original
on August 8, 2016
. Retrieved
July 24,
2016
.
- ^
Plitt, Amy (August 17, 2017).
"Iconic 'Sphere' sculpture, damaged on 9/11, moves to its permanent home"
.
Curbed NY
. Retrieved
August 18,
2017
.
- ^
"The Sphere, a Symbol of Resilience After 9/11, Is Unveiled at Liberty Park"
. September 6, 2017
. Retrieved
September 30,
2017
.
- ^
Warerkar, Tanay (September 6, 2017).
"World Trade Center's iconic 'Sphere' sculpture is now on view at Liberty Park"
.
Curbed NY
. Retrieved
October 1,
2017
.
- ^
Adlon, Percy.
"Koenig's Sphere"
. Percy Adlon. Archived from
the original
on February 13, 2023
. Retrieved
June 11,
2021
.
- ^
Freundeskreis Fritz Koenig e.V. (June 11, 2021).
"THE SPHERE - Vom Kunstwerk zum Mahnmal"
.
Freundeskreis Fritz Koenig e.V
. Retrieved
June 11,
2021
.
- ^
Freundeskreis Fritz Koenig e.V.
"THE SPHERE - From Artwork to Memorial"
. Freundeskreis Fritz Koenig e.V
. Retrieved
June 11,
2021
.
External links
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