Fly high above Italy’s Lake Iseo for the opening day of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s The Floating Piersinstallation. On June 18th, 2016, tourists and locals walked across 7,503 deep saffron-colored panels that wrap around 220,000 buoyant polyethylene cubes. The walkways connect two small islands to the mainland. Tyler MacNiven filmed the event from above. From The New York Times:

Walking on the floating pier, as I discovered, is akin to being on a lightly rocking boat, without feeling wary about suddenly toppling over should a strong wave arrive. Shoes are optional, and it’s probably worth taking them off, at least for a moment, to feel the fabric’s texture. (There is a layer of felt beneath the saffron cover.) When wet, the walkway is a little squishy; when sunny, it should feel warm to the toes…

Getting the walkway to both gently undulate and remain securely affixed to the uneven lake bottom was a feat that has occupied engineers, construction companies, French deep-sea divers and even a team of Bulgarian athletes drafted over the past two years…

The project, he said, “is all this” — the piers, the lake, the mountains, “with the sun, the rain, the wind, it’s part of the physicality of the project, you have to live it.”

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