How a floating sphere gets the story rolling.

INSIGHT: Kusser floating sphere

InsightsSTORY

How a floating sphere gets the story rolling.

In 1987, the floating sphere was the cause of considerable excitement at Stone+tec, the Natural Stone Trade Fair in Nürnberg. Shortly after, at the invite of Antollini, it was also displayed at Sant’Ambrogio near Verona and once again was a great crowd puller. From there, the idea spread quickly. It wasn’t long before copycats appeared and legally, it was practically impossible to enforce the IP protection. Why then do we still have the floating sphere? Because it embodies Kusser’s attitude: Delight at the impossible.

The official opening ceremony of the 2006 Fifa World Cup hosted by Franz Beckenbauer, with the floating sphere manufactured from Tittling fine-grain and coarse-grain granite.

Around the globe

Children with floating sphere at the Science Museum of Virginia

Floating sphere on a rotating disc in Japan

A product that started with an audacious query, a product that still moves people today - in public parks, museums, on plazas and town squares, and in private collections. The floating sphere was the starting point for lots more. It highlighted our inventive genius, improved our craftsmanship and opened up markets in America and Japan. Since then this technical pioneering approach has been part of our DNA. Kusser has supplied hundreds of floating sphere, among others to the Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral), Science Museum (Richmond), and World War II Memorial in Nashville. There is even one in Japan in Benesse House on the island of Naoshima.

Manufacturing

From an unfinished block

Layer by layer

quarry block being milled into a sphere step by step

To reveal the sphere

granite sphere receiving its final shape

At that time nobody knew about floating spheres. Yet when my brother Georg asked me whether we could manufacture a precise sphere, I said yes. For me, the task was very stimulating, even though it turned out to be much more difficult than I had expected.

Josef Kusser senior

Art, culture & large shapes

Alongside the floating spheres, Kusser is also responsible for the production of accurate, polished large spheres for international art projects, such as for Walter De Maria and Olafur Eliasson. Works can be seen at Chichu Art Museum and in Benesse House on Naoshima; other large sphere are in Munich and Bridgehampton, New York. The sphere therefore becomes a sculptural statement somewhere between nature, geometry, and time.