Christo, adieu!

Rest in peace, dear Christo!

One of the greatest artists and visionaries from my native Bulgaria went on his eternal journey yesterday (31 May 2020). Finally he is united with his love Jeanne – Claude. I will always be inspired by his genius soul and artistic touch to our magnificent nature and his visions will never be forgotten.

One of the countless projects Christo and Jeanne – Claude made is the Running Fence. I was impressed especially when searching for fabric, lightweight structures for my Frei Otto’s room project.

Running Fence:  5.5 meters high, 39.4 kilometers long, extending east-west near Freeway 101, north of San Francisco, on the private properties of 59 ranchers, following the rolling hills and dropping down to the Pacific Ocean at Bodega Bay. The Running Fence was completed on September 10, 1976.

Running Fence was made of 200,000 square meters of heavy woven white nylon fabric, hung from a steel cable strung between 2,050 steel poles (each 6.4 meters long, 8.9 cm in diameter) embedded 91 centimeters into the ground, using no concrete and braced laterally with guy wires (145 kilometers of steel cable) and 14,000 earth anchors. The top and bottom edges of the 2,050 fabric panels were secured to the upper and lower cables by 350,000 hooks.

All expenses for the temporary work of art were paid by Christo and Jeanne-Claude through the sale of studies, preparatory drawings and collages, scale models and original lithographs. The artists do not accept sponsorship of any kind.

All parts of Running Fence’s structure were designed for complete removal and no visible evidence of Running Fence remains on the hills of Sonoma and Marin Counties.

(Christo, 1976)

There are no better words to express my deep respect for the artist of such scale than an architect and friend of mine, Pavel Yanchev (2020) said:

‘Against prevailing narratives that describe Christo solely as a freedom fighter and challenging the constraints of administrations, I think that he taught us all how we should approach a project. Namely, have to confront reality with profound study, with negotiation, with patience and with respect towards the complexities of human and natural environment.’