In July 1968, in conjunction with the Festival of Two Worlds, Christo and Jeanne-Claude almost finalized their project to wrap the Spoleto opera house, the three-story Teatro Nuovo, an 18th-century building that is one of the main attractions of the small town in the mountains of central Italy. Once again, Christo and Jeanne-Claude were unable to bring their project to fruition, this time due to legislation and fire safety regulations.

While Christo was working in Switzerland, creating the Wrapped Kunsthalle in Bern, Jeanne-Claude was invited to look around the town of Spoleto and, instead of the opera house, after consulting Christo over the phone, she chose to wrap a medieval tower and a baroque fountain on the market square.

The large square tower, standing like a wrapped sentinel at the end of a medieval causeway, was one of the first landmarks on the road winding into Spoleto, giving a strange indication of the curious mix of old and new cultures at the Festival of Two Worlds.

In the main square of the town center, the wrapped fountain caused a sensation with its white woven polypropylene fabric and rope that stretched across the entire side of a four-story building whose silhouette resembled a baroque church facade. The fabric shimmered like white satin in the sun and began to flutter at the slightest whisper of a breeze.

Both wrappings remained in place for three weeks, the duration of the festival.

Due to the simultaneity of the two projects in Italy and Switzerland, Christo never saw the wrapped medieval tower and wrapped fountain in Spoleto, while Jeanne-Claude never saw the Wrapped Kunsthalle in Bern. That same summer, together, they completed the 5,600 cubic meter wrapping in Kassel, Germany.

(Text extracted from the website Christo & Jeanne-Claude)

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