Sapsis Rigging Flies Phoenix in St. John's Cathedral

	Two sculptures, designed and crafted by Chinese artist Xu Bing, represent a male and female Phoenix flying through the nave of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, rigged by Sapsis Rigging. Photo: Canna Gray

Sapsis Rigging provided rigging design and installation services as well as all of the equipment to fly two sculptures in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. The sculptures, designed and crafted by Chinese artist Xu Bing, represent a male and female Phoenix flying through the nave of the Cathedral.

Sapsis Rigging project manager Michael Sapsis noted, "This project was interesting from start to finish. The Cathedral, which was built in the 1890's, was not designed with rigging points and finding places to support the weight of the two birds was a challenge."

The two Phoenix, which weigh 13,000lb each, were suspended from a truss grid which was in turn suspended from 38 chain hoists attached to the building. The truss grid contains approximately 850' of 20.5" aluminum box truss and weighs approximately 12,000lb, bringing the total weight suspended from the Cathedral roof to 38,0000lb.

The Cathedral, located at 112th St and Amsterdam Avenue, is the largest gothic Cathedral in the world. The nave is 250' long and 125' high. Daniel Porter, one the lead riggers for Sapsis Rigging observed that, "The first hurdle was to get the sculptures into the building." A 50' long by 30' tall loading dock was built from the front of the Cathedral out to Amsterdam Avenue so the crates on flatbed trucks containing the sculptures could be offloaded by cranes. The front doors of the Cathedral were then removed to allow the larger sections of the birds to fit into the nave.

Once inside, the truss grid was assembled and flown into position 60' above the Cathedral floor. Large sections of the sculptures were then assembled on the floor and raised into position and suspended from the truss grid. The entire installation took just under two weeks to complete.

"We started discussions about the project over a year ago", Michael Sapsis offered, "and the serious design and engineering phase lasted three months." The sculptures will be on view in the Cathderal for the rest of 2014.

Sapsis Rigging is honored to be part of this project and would like to thank Michael Sapsis and the SRI installation team; Daniel Porter, Paul Sapsis, Alex Gorman, Daryll John, Nate Doyle, Scott Sloan, the Sapsis Rigging staff, and McLaren Engineering for their dedication and hard work in making this project happen.