Christo has completed The London Mastaba, a 20-metre-high sculpture floating on London's Serpentine Lake, which represents his and late wife Jeanne-Claude's determination to make art free. 
Based on the trapezoid shapes of mastaba an Arabic word for bench given to tombs found in Egypt and in the architecture of Mesopotamia, the temporary sculpture is the realisation of the artistic duo's shared dream of creating a floating version of a form that has fascinated them for half a century.
The London Mastaba, which is made of 7,506 painted barrels secured to scaffolding and anchored in the lake, was entirely self funded and is free to view by all.

As with all of Christo and Jeanne Claude's installations, the money was raised through the sale of original artworks. There are no assistants; all the pieces are made by the artist. "This is why I do the things I like to do," added Christo. "Nobody commissions these things, they are decided by us, nobody asked us to build a mastaba. This is all the unstoppable desire to do works of art."

The London Mastaba is the first large-scale sculpture by Christo and Jeanne-Claude to be realised in the UK.
Construction began on 3 April 2018 by a team drawn from JK Basel, Deep Dive Systems, and Coventry Scaffolding, with engineering help from Schlaich Bergermann Partner.

Interlocking high-density polyethylene has been used to create a floating platform that is held in place by 32 anchors, each weighing 6 tonnes. The barr...