Remember that winter in New York when bright-orange gates suddenly appeared in Central Park? About a decade ago, The Gates was the culmination of a 26-year-long project by artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, a married couple whose inventive installations have popped up around the world for the last 60 years. This summer, their latest project was a giant ecofriendly yellow dock on Lake Iseo in Italy, where visitors walked a two-mile pathway that barely rose above the water, undulating with the waves.
The Floating Piers was their first large-scale project since The Gates in Central Park, funded entirely by Christo’s own art sales. (Jeanne-Claude passed away in 2009.) After the dock floated for 16 days earlier this summer, all of the materials were recycled.
The book Christo and Jeanne-Claude: The Floating Piers, out August 25 from Taschen, chronicles the installation’s labor-intensive construction. Featuring photographs of the completed project and sketches from the couple’s studio, the collection documents both the complex process and simple beauty of the resulting docks.
Click ahead to preview the book’s Zen aerial shots, including stunning views of Lake Iseo, the surrounding mountains and villages, and hordes of visitors who (almost) walked on water.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Floating Piers, Lake Iseo, Italy, 2014-2016.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Floating Piers, Lake Iseo, Italy, 2014-2016.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Floating Piers, Lake Iseo, Italy, 2014-2016.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Floating Piers, Lake Iseo, Italy, 2014-2016.
Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Floating Piers, Lake Iseo, Italy, 2014-2016.
Christo rented a 300-meter-by-300-meter area of the lake surface to store the 30 segments of the piers.
A two-part drawing from 2014.
A 2016 two-part drawing.
Christo with project director Vladimir Yavachev and curator-slash-art-historian Germano Celant on Lake Iseo in the summer of 2014.
The Floating Piers will be available August 25.
