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.

The creation of the originally titled Große Kugelkaryatide N.Y. / Great Caryatid Sphere N.Y. (catalogue raisonné Sk 416) dates to the 1960s and early 1970s.

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 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.

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.

[6] 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.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, his predecessor Rudy Giuliani and other local officials spoke at a ceremony rededicating it as a memorial to the victims.

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.

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.When Liberty Park opened in June 2016, the question had not been resolved.

[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.