Fritz Koenig

The Sphere

 The Sphere is a large metallic sculpture by German sculptor Fritz Koenig, displayed in Battery Park, New York City, that once stood in the middle of Austin J. Tobin Plaza, the area between the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan. After being recovered from the rubble of the Twin Towers after the September 11 attacks in 2001, the artwork faced an uncertain fate, and it was dismantled into its components. Although it remained structurally intact, it had been visibly damaged by debris from the airliners that were crashed into the buildings and from the collapsing skyscrapers themselves.
Six months after the attacks, following a documentary film about the sculpture, it was relocated to Battery Park on a temporary basis—without any repairs—and formally rededicated with an eternal flame as a memorial to the victims of 9/11. It has become a major tourist attraction, due partly to the fact that it survived the attacks with only dents and holes.

 Fritz Koenig (20 June 1924 – 22 February 2017) was a German sculptor best known outside his native country for "The Sphere," which once stood in the plaza between the two World Trade Center towers in Lower Manhattan but which now stands, its damage deliberately left unrepaired, in Battery Park as a memorial to the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. His oeuvre includes other works, including other memorials.Born in Würzburg, Koenig's family moved to the Bavarian community of Landshut when he was six. In the years after World War II he studied art at the Kunstakademie München (Munich School of Art), graduating in 1952. Nine years later he moved to Ganslberg, a farming community outside Landshut where he lived and worked on a horse farm. In 1964 he was appointed professor of art at the Technical University of Munich.He died in Landshut on 22 February 2017, aged 92.Wikipedia