Required Reading

JR’s “La Caverne du Pont Neuf Paris” (2026) creates an optical illusion by projecting an inflated black-and-white mountain range onto the pathway across the Seine, transforming the bridge into a cave that is free and open to all. The work pays homage to Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s 1985 swaddling of Paris’s oldest bridge in 50,000 square feet of fabric. A separate initiative described by architecture scholar Karrie Jacobs aims to encourage people to walk New York’s shoreline through a come-one, come-all 520-mile, two-week event. The walk-a-thon did not occur, but the underlying philosophy links economic development with environmentally thoughtful approaches to waterways and wetlands. Walking the waterfront is framed as a way to turn policy into lived experience and art.

"JR’s “La Caverne du Pont Neuf Paris” (2026) pays homage to artistic duo Christo and Jeanne-Claude, who swaddled Paris's oldest bridge in 50,000 square feet of fabric in 1985. Half a century later, JR's inflated black-and-white mountain range transforms the pathway across the Seine into a cave, free and open to all."

"Sadly, the come-one, come-all version of the 520-mile walk-a two-week extravaganza in which New Yorkers would have marched en masse along the water's edge-never happened. Too bad. I suspect the project as originally conceived would have been a logistical nightmare, but also a phenomenon: a geekier, slower-moving answer to the New York City Marathon."

"Its underlying philosophy-that there's no conflict between economic development and an environmentally thoughtful approach to waterways and wetlands-is, obviously, much needed right now. But the experiential part of the project-walking the walk-was alchemy, transforming a policy initiative into a work of art. The thing Nowacek and Marrella have been saying for years-that there is a value that comes from knowing the waterfront-was obvious even during this one afternoon."

Read at Hyperallergic