Christo’s newest floating sculpture is now under construction in London

Christo, the mysterious builder of large-scale sculptures, is at work on a new piece in London’s Hyde Park. Called The Mastaba, which started construction last week, the piece will be built from 7,506 multi-colored barrels stacked into a trapezoidal pyramid that stands 65 feet tall, 90 feet wide, and 130 feet long. In other words: It’s going to be big.

Christo and his late wife Jeanne-Claude have a long history of using barrels in their artwork, first constructing a barricade in a narrow Parisian street with 89 stacked oil barrels. Later, Christo and Jeanne-Claude built a monolithic wall in Germany from 13,000 barrels. Christo and Jeanne-Claude originally conceived of The Mastaba as a large sculpture that would live in the Abu Dhabi desert, but it has yet to be constructed.

London’s version of The Mastaba is smaller, but no less impressive. In true Christo form, the trapezoid will rest on a floating platform in the middle of the Serpentine Lake, totally and blissfully out of the context of its natural surroundings.

Via: Designboom