Design
This Ladder Made of Fireworks Is Taller Than Any Building in America
Behold Sky Ladder, a pyrotechnic artwork by artist Cai Guo-Qiang, as it rises 1,650 feet into the air.
Cai Guo-Qiang, the Chinese artist known for blowing up a deciduous tree on the National Mall and dangling nine automobiles through the atrium of the Guggenheim Museum, has completed what may be his greatest work of art yet.
In June, the artist executed Sky Ladder, a project he first proposed 21 years ago. The piece features an approximately 1,650-foot-long stepladder-shaped apparatus attached to an enormous helium balloon. Fuses and golden fireworks affixed to the stepladder were ignited as the balloon pulled the ladder up into the air—rising higher than any building in the U.S.