Karin Sander was born in 1957 in the town of Bensberg in North Rhine- Westphalia in northern Germany. She now lives and works in Berlin and Stuttgart. In recent years, her work has been on show in a number of solo exhibitions at international museums (www.karinsander.de).

The computer-generated portrait reconstruction of the Bavarian Prime Minister Count Maximilian Joseph von Montgelas uses a combination of modern rapid prototyping and development processes at the level of both materials and technology to highlight the important role played by the enlightened reformer.

Karin Sander chose Bertrandt to support with the design and practical implementation of her concept for an aluminium statue. On the basis of an existing data structure, the engineers worked closely with the artist to optimise the exterior shell and to develop the supporting steel frame of the statue, which is made up of 15 separate segments. After this, the individual aluminium blanks, which weighed a total of 30 tonnes, were milled on 5-axis high-speed mills in Ehningen and Bretzfeld.

The finished memorial is 6.20 metres high, weighs 8 tonnes and is supported by a steel framework weighing 1.5 tonnes. One of the main challenges for the engineers and model builders was to create a uniform milled surface with invisible joins. A special insulation and sealing concept has been used to prevent the aluminium components from corroding. Karin Sander’s design was the winner of a competition held by the German state of Bavaria.