House of the Dragon Installation on the Empire State Building

King Kong isn’t the only huge beast to scale the iconic Empire State Building.

The landmark New York City skyscraper was recently taken over by a 270-foot-long dragon. Wrapping around the building's mast, the inflatable fabric installation spanned all the way up to the 103rd floor. The mythical monster was in the Big Apple to promote the highly anticipated second season of the HBO series "House of the Dragon," which recently premiered on Max. Fans of the series were quick to recognize that it is in fact Vhagar, queen of the dragons and the largest from the show.

Our firm provided structural design services to creative agency Giant Spoon and the Empire State Realty Trust for the dragon perch. Services included a peer review of the installation design, the cladding’s ability to support the dragon and rigging loads as well as analysis to confirm the ability of the building’s main steel frame to support the loads imposed. Because of its elevated position, bulky configuration and light construction, our review focused mainly on evaluating loads imposed by wind during its installed state as well as the deflated state should wind speeds exceed a predefined threshold. McLaren Engineering Group was the engineer of record for the installation, and Jepol Construction Inc. was the contractor. 

It's not the first time Thornton Tomasetti has helped some famous superheroes stand out in Manhattan: