The Floating Piers: walking on the water, between art and wonder which literally means “The floating piers”.
In June 2016, Lake Iseo welcomed a dream: “The Floating Piers,” Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s monumental work, a 4.5-kilometer-long golden bridge that allowed people to walk on water. For sixteen days, the lake became a place suspended between reality and vision, 1.5 million people from all over the world arrived to experience the unique sensation of walking on the impossible. The golden yellow fabric that floated between Sulzano, Monte Isola and San Paolo transformed the landscape into a living picture.
Every step, every wave, every reflection told of an encounter between art and nature, between man and the sacred.
Christo said:
“The work of art is not the fabric, it is not the lake. It is the shared experience of those who walk.”
Christo, together with his wife Jeanne-Claude, had a recurring dream: to create a work that would allow people to walk on water, feeling like they were part of the landscape, not just observers.
The idea for The Floating Piers had already been born in the 1970s, but he was only able to realize it in 2016, on Lake Iseo.
He chose this lake precisely because it is intimate and protected, surrounded by mountains and constantly changing light – a place where water and sky seem to converse.
Here is how Christo explained his intention:
“I wanted people to walk in freedom, without barriers, feeling the lake under their feet.
Water is the most real and most fragile thing there is: you can’t own it, you can only cross it.”
In fact, The Floating Piers was not just an installation, but a collective ritual: an invitation to rediscover direct contact with nature, to slow down, to walk in silence, balancing between land and water.
A sign that opposites come together and create beauty: it is not true that what is distinct from us harms us, what actually harms us is non-knowledge.
Beyond memory
When the work was dismantled, Christo said:
“Now only the memory remains. And the memory is the most beautiful part, because it belongs to those who lived it.”
I am convinced that it is not just a memory.
Everything is happening now, everything is happening right now, and everything is happening to me, to you who read and are part of it.
It is as if you, too, at this very moment, are there.
Time is not linear, it is circular.
Nothing is really finished, because nothing ever began.
Everything is part of a whole that, as in a continuum, is re-presented to you through images.
One of these images is simply your person traveling, visiting, stopping, listening, and taking the experience with them.
A personal memory
I personally took this photo in 2016, just as Christo’s floating bridge was being built.
I remember the silence of the water, the slow movements of the technicians, and next to me a painter trying to capture that moment in a painting.
It was as if the lake, the canvas, and the work merged into a single expression of light.
Today, every time I look at this image, I still feel like I can smell the scent of the lake and the energy of those unrepeatable days.
📸 Personal shot during the construction of The Floating Piers, 2016.
🌿 Experience the same magic today
From the Luer Prince, in Lovere, it takes only 20 minutes by car to reach Sulzano.
From there you can take the boat and reach Sensole or Peschiera Maraglio, to breathe the same magic of that walk suspended over the water.
Walk through the streets of the island, be inspired by the silence and the echo of a work that has touched the hearts of more than 1.5 million people.
To be there today is to feel the vibration of a place that still retains the memory of so many past souls and celebrities, all united by the desire to experience beauty.
🔗 Find out more about Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Floating Piers project
Valentina – Luer Prince