Conceptual artist Christo is building a gigantic sculpture out of oil barrels

Via Taschen

Today in buildings that may or may not herald the coming of the apocalypse, Christo (you know, the one who wrapped a bunch of islands, an Australian bay coastline, and Berlin’s Reichstag building in fabric) is moving forward with a decades-in-the-making plan to build what he calls “the world’s biggest permanent sculpture.” It will be a massive structure almost 500 feet tall and made out of 410,000 oil barrels, which will stand in the desert 10 miles from Abu Dhabi.

This monstrosity will take 30 months to build, so theoretically the world will end before it’s complete anyway. Here’s a couple of sketches of what it might look like:

Via Wolfgang Volz

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Via John Menick

Christo and partner Jeanne-Claude first thought up the idea 30 years ago. It will cost at least $340 million to build, and the barrels will come in reds and yellows inspired by desert sands. Christo says, according to the Guardian, that this is not a pyramid (although it will be taller than the Great Pyramid at Giza) and that it’s not a comment on the oil economy. According to the artist, “We only do works of joy and beauty.”