On September 22, 1985, a group of 300 professional workers completed the temporary work of art The Pont Neuf Wrapped. They had deployed 41,800 square meters (450,000 square feet) of woven polyamide fabric, silky in appearance and golden sandstone in color, covering:
The sides and vaults of the twelve arches, without hindering river traffic.
The parapets down to the ground.
The sidewalks and curbs (pedestrians walked on the fabric).
All the street lamps on both sides of the bridge.
The vertical part of the embankment of the western tip of the Île de la Cité.
The Esplanade of the Vert-Galant.
The fabric was restrained by 13 kilometers (8 miles) of rope and secured by 12.1 tons of steel chains encircling the base of each tower, one meter (3.3 feet) underwater.
2024 Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony:
Acrobats from Compagnie XY (also referred to as the XY company):
Circus artists from Gratte-Ciel company (Cie Gratte Ciel)
Tightrope/slackline walker Nathan Paulin performed a high-wire act on the Pont Neuf, soaring approximately 34 meters above ground.
2026
Snow and a mountain in Paris, in the middle of rising temperatures? In three weeks, JR has completely transformed the Pont-Neuf into a long monumental "cave" of canvas and air that changes the landscape of the western tip of the Île de la Cité, for a project that will be finalized on June 6 and will remain in place until June 28. At the end of "a very complex operation", which mobilized a total of 800 people, the oldest bridge in Paris was revisited by the French artist.
The photographer with a hat and sunglasses is not at his first colossal installation, but he recognizes that this is one of his "craziest projects, in terms of scale and technique".
La Caverne is a tribute to Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the couple of artists, now deceased, who had wrapped the Pont Neuf with fabric in 1985, attracting millions of visitors. 40 years ago, the couple had to fight to overcome reluctance, especially political, such as those of the mayor of Paris at the time, Jacques Chirac.
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