The long-awaited wrapping of the Arc de Triomphe by the late artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude is nearing completion ahead of its official September 18th debut. 

A 95-member team of technicians is working to unfurl over 25,000 square meters (82,000 square feet) of the duo’s signature polypropylene fabric that will completely envelop the iconic Parisian monument that was originally commissioned by Napoleon I in 1806.

It had been the couple’s dream to wrap to monument since 1962 when Christo and Jeanne-Claude occupied an apartment on the nearby Avenue Foch, where the Bulgarian immigré produced a photomontage of the wrapping that took sixty years to actualize.

Now, with workers abseiling down the face of the 50-meter tall Arc, the
duo’s vision has finally come together thanks to an exhaustive body of
drawings and other technical specifications left behind by the artist
following his death in Paris last year at the age of 84.

The project got the go-ahead in 2017 from the French Centre des Monuments Nationaux and is being funded entirely by private sales of the artists’ preparatory drawings, lithographs, and other works produced since the 1950s. 

“Right now, we are concentrating on getting the job done, and we are postponing the feelings for a little later,” Christo’s nephew, Vladimir Yavachev, who is overseeing the installation, told The Guardian. “It’s a kind of therapy; you concentrate on something, so you don’t think about something else. The biggest challenge for me is that Christo is not here. I miss his enthusiasm, his criticism, his energy, and that is for me the biggest challenge.”

Arc de Triomph, Wrapped will run for a period of sixteen days starting Saturday and ending on October 3rd. A live-streamed YouTube channel has been dedicated to the event for those who cannot attend in person. More images of the installation can be viewed below.