Christo's Floating Piers Connects Italian Lake Towns for Two Weeks in 2016

Christo, the Bulgarian-born American artist known for monumental fabric installations, realized The Floating Piers on Italy's Lake Iseo in June 2016. The 4.5-kilometer walkway of yellow fabric and polyethylene cubes linked Sulzano to Monte Isola for 16 days, attracting nearly one million visitors. This ephemeral work, costing 15 million euros, was financed through sales of preparatory drawings, a model studied by Harvard University. Christo, who fled communist Bulgaria in 1958, created the piece posthumously with his late wife Jeanne-Claude, who was credited as co-author from 1994 onward. The couple previously wrapped Berlin's Reichstag in 1995 and Paris's Pont Neuf in 1985. The installation required over 500 workers and two years of testing in German lakes and the Black Sea. All materials were recycled after dismantling on July 3, 2016. A related exhibition, Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Water Projects, ran at Brescia's Santa Giulia museum until September 18, 2016.