CHRISTO WHO, EVEN THOUGH ALREADY IN HIS 80S, STILL LOOKS COMPLETELY ENTHUSIASTIC. HE TAKES A WALK AROUND THE AREA WHERE THE GIGANTIC PIER, ‘THE FLOATING PIERS’, IS LOCATED
TEXT: AROON PURITAT
PHOTO: WOLFGANG VOLZ
(For Thai, press here)
Christo who, even though already in his 80s, still looks completely enthusiastic. He takes a walk around the area where the gigantic pier, ‘The Floating Piers’, is located without the sight of his lifetime partner-in-art and wife, Jeanne-Claude, who passed away in 2009, by his side.
The idea for the project was initiated by the legendary artistic duo back in 1970, but had never been built since both Christo and Jeanne-Claude couldn’t find the most suitable site for the project. It wasn’t until 2014 when Christo and his team came across Lake Iseo, located to the north of Italy that they decided that it would be the perfect place for the project. It took two years of planning and preparing for the project that would be open for exhibition for 16 days only, (18th June – 3rd July, 2016).
The total 220,000 floating cubical buoys covered with 100,000 square meters of wide, bright fabric ranging in shades from yellow and red to gold created 2.5 kilometer long pedestrian streets (16 meters in width) that connected the town of Sulzano to a small island named Monte Isola located in the middle of the lake and the island of San Paolo. The spectacle of people walking on the orange pier on the opening day is like they were walking on water – or perhaps the back of a whale. Whatever, they all came here to walk, walk and walk.