Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed their wrapping of the Reichstag on June 24, 1995. In the two weeks after, 5 million visitors flooded the site in Berlin, setting a world record for visits to a cultural event. The wrapped Reichstag became a festive scene as people danced and celebrated the artistic wonder. Fabric pieces were also distributed to visitors from around the world as souvenirs.

Christo began presenting his first concepts for a "Wrapped Reichstag" back in 1971. An accompanying exhibition documented the installation's long gestation with original drawings, models, photographs, pieces of rope, fabric and much else. In 2015, it was permanently reopened to the public as the Wrapped Reichstag Documentation Exhibition.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude (above) founded their own company to oversee the Reichstag project, and photographer Wolfgang Volz helped manage the project, hiring 1,800 employees for the installation. The concept had a broad base of public support, which helped convince the Bundestag to give the project the green light after three rejections.

On June 17, 1995, the first truck transporting the silvery tarpaulins arrived at the Reichstag. Onlookers soon gathered at the site as more than 100,000 square meters of the now iconic wrapping and several kilometers of blue rope were dropped off. The building had been out of use as a parliament since the early 1930s and would not become part of the modern German Parliament until 1999.

Now the assembly of the epic installation could begin, with Christo donning his work gloves and getting to work. It had taken decades for him and his wife to convince the German Parliament to approve their plans, but he remained enthusiastic about the project due to the building's deep historical symbolism. But such symbolism was also the source of the heated debate in the Bundestag.

The theme of freedom had marked Christo's art since his escape from communist Bulgaria in 1951. Despite its eventful history, the Reichstag building was also a symbol of freedom. It was the site where a republic, and hence German democracy, was proclaimed in 1918, and where the official reunification ceremony took place in 1990 after the end of the communist German Democratic Republic.

But the building, built in 1894 by the last German Emperor, Wilhelm II, was also symbolic of the Nazi regime's rise to power. On the night of February 27, 1933, the Reichstag was set on fire. A Dutch communist, Marinus van der Lubbe, was soon arrested and executed for the crime. Many have suspected that the Nazis were behind the fire. Either way, the event became a pretext for authoritarian rule.

In 1971 the newly reconstructed building bordering the Berlin Wall housed the exhibition "Questions about German History," which asked how parliamentary democracy was destroyed in Germany. Nearly 20 years later, in 1989, the Wall fell. The historical moment paved the way for Christo and Jeanne-Claude's grand art project to be realized.

After the wrapping, the building was re-renovated and was crowned by the Norman Foster-designed glass dome, a symbol of transparency that has since become an international tourist attraction. "Republic Square" ("Platz der Republik") fronting the building is again a site for protest and debate, while the Wrapped Reichstag Documentation Exhibition can still be accessed with a special permit.

The "Arc de Triomphe, Wrapped" was announced as the last large-scale project completed by Christo during his lifetime. The Parisian landmark at the end of the Champs Elysees was to be covered in September 2020 with a silvery-blue recyclable fabric, tied by a red rope. Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude had developed the concept for this installation back in 1962.

Christo Vladimirov Javacheff was born in Bulgaria on June 13, 1935. After studying art in Sofia, he fled to the West. In Paris he met his future wife, Jeanne-Claude, with whom he initiated spectacular art projects in the late 1960s. Christo took care of the art, Jeanne-Claude the organization.

Christo developed his first elaborate installations in the 1960s, wrapping everyday objects such as chairs, magazines and oil drums. Later he created "Air Packages" such as this 5,600-cubic-meter installation at the Documenta 4 art fair in Kassel in 1968, which earned him worldwide recognition.

In the 1970s, projects by Christo and Jeanne-Claude grew more elaborate and colorful. To preserve their artistic freedom, the couple financed the installations by selling drawings, photographs and models of their works. In this spectacular creation from 1972, a 400 meter (1,310 ft.)-long cloth was stretched across Rifle Gap, a valley in Colorado.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude never concealed objects and buildings to the point that they could no longer be recognized. The packaging was meant to stimulate the viewer's imagination. In 1985, they wrapped the Pont Neuf in Paris. Depending on the weather, the fabric would glitter differently — allowing the bridge to literally appear in a different light.

In the 1990s, the art interventions of Christo and Jeanne-Claude became increasingly gigantic and risky. A worker died during the installation of one of the 3,000 umbrellas set up in both Japan and California for the project "The Umbrellas." Afterwards, Christo hired only professional climbers and engineers. He also commissioned German companies to manufacture the huge fabrics for his art.

The journey from the initial idea to the completion of an artwork can be lengthy. It took Christo and Jeanne-Claude 23 years to bring about their project "Wrapped Reichstag." The spectacular show finally took place in June 1995 when they wrapped the seat of the German parliament with 100,000 square meters (1,076,000 square feet) of silver fabric. Within 16 days, 5 million visitors came to see it.

Christo started working with oil drums back in the 1960s. In 1962 he blocked a Parisian street with stacked barrels. The barricade, titled "Iron Curtain," was created in protest of the construction of the Berlin Wall. He referred to the division again in his 1999 installation "The Wall," a 26-meter-high wall made of 13,000 oil barrels set up in the Gasometer, an industrial space in Oberhausen.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude not only covered objects and structures but also designed landscapes and parks, such as here in 2005 with "The Gates" in New York's Central Park. Christo and Jeanne-Claude planned the gates with the blowing fabrics in 1980, but the approval of the project took even longer than the "Wrapped Reichstag." Environmental concerns were the main issue.

Christo's wife Jeanne-Claude died in 2009, and it took a few years for the artist to return to his projects. "Big Air Package" from 2013 was the first project he designed alone. The 90-meter-high, air-filled textile package was set up in the Oberhausen Gasometer. Visitors could walk inside the huge sculpture — a fascinating spatial experience.

With "Floating Piers," Christo fulfilled a longtime dream: to walk on water. Over 1.2 million visitors came to walk the three-kilometer stretch of pontoons on Lake Iseo in Italy. Like all of his projects, Christo financed the roughly €13 million ($14 million) work by selling sketches and photos, allowing him to remain free and independent of sponsors.

Like the air packages, variations on the idea of the mastaba regularly appeared in Christo's works. The pyramid, modeled after an Ancient Egyptian tomb, was a temporary installation in London's Hyde Park in 2018. The 7,506 oil barrels stacked on a floating platform were Christo's first major outdoor project in the UK.

The Mastaba in London was a foretaste of the great mastaba that Christo and Jeanne-Claude had planned for Abu Dhabi. The gigantic pyramid of 410,000 oil barrels was to be the artist couple's first major permanent project. They often visited their desired location in the desert of the United Arab Emirates. "The Mastaba," featured on Christo's homepage, remained a dream.