”On 28 June 2016, we’ve spent a day at Lake Iseo in Italy to walk on Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s large-scale art installation The Floating Piers. The Floating Piers was first conceived by Christo and Jeanne-Claude together in 1970. It is Christo’s first large-scale project since Christo and Jeanne-Claude realized The Gates in 2005, and since Jeanne-Claude passed away in 2009.
The Floating Piers is a 3-kilometer-long walkway that extends across the water of Lake Iseo. The piers are 16 meters wide and approximately 35 centimeters high with sloping sides. The fabric continues along 2.5 kilometers of pedestrian streets in Sulzano and Peschiera Maraglio.
“Those who experience The Floating Piers will feel like they are walking on water – or perhaps the back of a whale,” said Christo. “The light and water will transform the bright yellow fabric to shades of red and gold throughout the sixteen days.”
Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s art project lasted sixteen days, June 18 through July 3, 2016. The Floating Piers are 100,000 square meters of shimmering yellow fabric, carried by a modular floating dock system of 220,000 high-density polyethylene cubes, which undulate with the movement of the waves. Visitors could experience the work of art by walking on it from Sulzano to Monte Isola and to the island of San Paolo, which was framed by The Floating Piers.
This video provides you with impressions of The Floating Piers gathered by walking on the piers, viewing it from the surrounding mountains, and hovering over it by helicopter.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Floating Piers. Lake Iseo (Italy), June 28, 2016”.