CHRISTO AND JEANNE-CLAUDE
Wrapped Kunsthalle, Bern, Switzerland 1967-68

A Swiss art museum, the Kunsthalle in Bern, gave the artists their first opportunity to fully package an entire building. July, 1968, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the museum, and the event was celebrated with an international group show of environmental works by twelve artists.

As one of the dozen participants, Christo and Jeanne-Claude showed nothing inside the museum, but literally packaged the entire exhibition. "We took the environments by eleven other artists," Christo remarked with amusement, "and packaged them. We had our whole environment inside."

The Christos shrouded the Kunsthalle with 2,430 square meters (27,000 square feet) of reinforced polyethylene, which was left over from the discarded first skin of the Kassel air package, secured it with 3,050 meters (10,000 feet) of nylon rope, and made a slit in front of the main entrance so visitors could enter the building.

The Kunsthalle is a bulky-looking building, despite its curved walls and sloping roof, but its hulking silhouette was considerably softened by the mantle of translucent polyethylene. The only architectural elements that remained visible with any sharpness and clarity were the contours of the roof and cornices. The sides of the building were luxuriously swaged and the plastic veiling was continually animated by soft, billowing folds and an always-changing pattern of glimmering highlights.

The wrapping process took six days with the help of eleven construction workers. Because no nails could be driven into the building, special wooden supports had to be built for fastening the fabric to the building and at one point, to facilitate work on the roof, the local fire brigade was called upon to lend a hydraulic ladder. Insurance companies refused to underwrite the Kunsthalle and its valuable contents during the period it was wrapped, so to guard against possible fire and vandalism, the museum's director Harald Szeeman had six watchmen posted around the building at all times. As this proved to ite expensive, the building was unwrapped after one week.

While Christo was working in bern, Switzerland on Wrapped Kunsthalle, Jeanne-Claude was working in Spoletto, Italy, creating the Wrapped Fountain and the Wrapped Medieval Tower. Because of the simultanous timing of the projects in Italy and Switzerland, Christo never saw (in person) the Wrapped Tower and the Wrapped Fountain in Spoletto, while Jeanne-Claude never saw (in person) the Wrapped Kunsthalle in Bern.

Excerpt from the book Christo by David Bourdon.
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, New York, ©1970.
Edited and updated by Susan Astwood, June 2000, and by Jok Church, February 2008