(Paris) Six million people: this is the estimate of the number of people who saw “the Arc du Triomphe, Wrapped (enveloped)” in Paris, posthumous work of Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude, according to a report released on Tuesday.
It is more than for the Wrapped Reichstag in Berlin in 1995 (five million) and that for The Gates in 2005 in New York (four million), according to the teams responsible for the organization of the project, “crazy dream” of the Bulgarian artist, known the world over for his monumental packaging.
Christo had also packed the Pont-Neuf in Paris in 1985, but no estimate of attendance was made at the time, according to the same source.
Of the six million people estimated to have seen and walked around the building from September 18 to October 3, 3.2 million spent several hours nearby and 1.1 million came specifically to see the famous monument wrapped in silver and bluish film, according to the report.
Among them, “30% of foreigners and 70% of French including 40% of Île-de-France” (the Paris region), according to the report. Some 63,500 of them also bought a ticket to climb to the top of the building during the installation, according to data provided by the Center des monuments nationaux (CMN).
During the event, the Place de l’Étoile, where the Arc de Triomphe is located, was closed to traffic for three weekends in a row.
The project, carried out in partnership with the CMN in coordination with the City of Paris, was carried out with 25,000 square meters of recyclable silver-blue fabric and 3000 meters of recyclable red rope.
Costing 14 million euros, the project was funded by the sale of original works of art by Christo, including preparatory studies, collages, models, works from the 1950s and 1960s and lithographs. .