Hate to say it, but I thought The Gates was fun. The color was more garish than I'd expected, and I sort of felt like a sucker for being there freezing in the middle of Central Park on a blustery February day. But there was definitely a festive feeling in the air.
What surprised me most about The Gates was how over-engineered the display was. E.g., the fabric panels were made of what looked like military-grade rip-stop nylon, which is pretty excessive for an exhibit designed to be up only 16 days. Of course, as artists go, Christo and Jeanne-Claude have the heart and soul of civil engineers. The official website for The Gates reads like a pamphlet on the building of Hoover Dam, boasting gee-whiz data like the following on materials used in the display:
• 5,290 US Tons of steel (4,799 Metric Tons) (10,580,000 pounds) (equal to 2/3 the steel in the Eiffel Tower) for 15,000 specially designed steel footing weights, varying between 615 and 837 pounds each, according to the width of the gate, (279 - 379 Kg.). Gates vary in width because there are 25 different widths of walkways in Central Park. The weights are resting on the hard surface of the walkways. There were no holes in Central Park.
• 315,491 linear feet (60 miles) (96.5 Km.) of Vinyl tube, 5 inch x 5 inch square, (12,7 x 12,7 cm.) extruded in saffron color, recyclable, specially designed, (for each gate: 2 vertical 16 feet long (4,87 meter), and one horizontal (varying between 6 and 18 feet, because the width of the walkways varies)
• 15,000 specially designed, recyclable, cast aluminum upper corner reinforcements which hold together the 2 vertical poles to the horizontal pole.
• 15,000 base anchor sleeves. Which will be bolted to the steel footing weights.
• 15,000 (1/2 inch x 8 inch x 8 inch) (1.27 x 22,8 x 22,8 cm.) steel leveling plates. The leveling plate is between the base anchor sleeve and the steel base, it has a pivoting bolt which will ensure the perfect verticality of the poles, even when the walkways are inclined.
• 165,000 bolts and self locking nuts. (7,500 x 22)
• 15,000 (8 x 8 x 8 inch) (22,8 x 22,8 x 22,8 cm.) Vinyl leveling plate covers, to hide the bolts.
• 116,389 miles (187,311 Km.) of nylon thread to be extruded in saffron color and specially woven into 1,067,330 square feet (99,155 square meters) of recyclable, rip-stop fabric, and then shipped to the sewing factory to be cut and sewn into 7,500 fabric panels of various widths. 46 miles (74 Km.) of hems.
<http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/tg.html>
Carl