Mae West cuts a fine figure in Munich

A Liebherr LR 1600/2 was used to place the sculpture’s 57t upper section on top of the 15m tall base section on the roundabout at one of the busiest traffic blackspots in the city, the Effnerplatz.

Due to the Effnerplatz’s importance to traffic circulation in the east of Munich the roundabout was only partially closed throughout the operation, except for a 20 minute closure for the load to be raised.

Schmidbauer’s LR 1600/2 was configured with an 84m main boom, 12m fixed jib, boom derrick and suspended ballast; all carefully selected to take up minimal space on the roundabout.

To further complicate the operation, as the upper section of the sculpture is made from carbon-fibre reinforced plastic, which has a low deformation capacity, it had to be lifted by its lower carrying ring.

This required spreader bars and eight chain lines secured to the ring, as well as millimetric precision during the lift itself.

Liebherr and Schmidbauer believe that the finely sensitive control arrangement of the LR 1600/2, along with the ease of adjustment of the derrick boom while under full load using the suspended ballast, made the crane the ideal choice for the job.

Erection of the ‘Mae West’ sculpture, an hourglass shaped arrangement of steel supports intended to depict the movements of a dancer, was completed in late January.

Funding for the work was provided through the Art in Construction programme, which sees 0.4% of the funding for major projects ring-fenced for public artworks.

The work at the Effnerplatz forms part of Munich’s middle ring tunnel construction project.