Smart Art

By Patty Paddock

In New York City this February, there was a really cool art exhibit called "The Gates." It was not in a museum or gallery, but in New York City's big backyard—Central Park. 7,500 saffron orange colored gates, each 16 feet tall, each with a billowing orange curtain, were placed along the 23 miles of footpaths in the park! The gates "bloomed" for 16 days, filling the park with color, and then they were taken down.

The artists—Christo and Jeane-Claude—tried 25 years ago to get New York City to agree to this exhibit. But New Yorkers care a great deal about their big backyard, and the first plans were not 'park smart'. At one point these early plans called for drilling into the ground and making concrete supports for each end of each gate (that's 15,000 holes and a whole lot of concrete!). And there were no plans for removing the concrete or filling the holes once the gates were taken down.

But 25 years later, the artists, working with engineers, came up with a much better plan. They were able to use recent engineering discoveries and processes to make each gate self-supporting. This meant that they didn't have to drill the 15,000 holes or fill the park with 15,000 cylinders of concrete!

Now that's smart art!