Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Orange Curtain

On August 10, 1972, in Rifle, Colorado, between Grand Junction and Glenwood Spring in the Grand Hogback Mountain Range, at 11 am, a group of 35 construction workers and 64 temporary helpers, art schools, college students, and itinerant art workers tied down the last of 27 ropes that secured the 12,780 square meters (142,000 square feet) of woven nylon fabric orange Curtain to its moorings at Rifle Gap, 7 miles (11.3 km) north of Rifle, on Highway 325.

Valley Curtain, was designed by Dimiter Zagoroff and John Thomson of Unipolycon of Lynn, Massachusetts, and Dr. Ernest C. Harris of Ken R. White Company, Denver, Colorado. It was built by A-and-H Builders Inc. of Boulder, Colorado,President, Theodore Dougherty, under the site supervision of Henry B. Leininger.

By suspending the Valley Curtain, at a width of 381 meters (1,250 feet) and a height curving from 111 meters (365 feet) at each end to 55.5 meters (182 feet) at the center, the Curtain remained clear of the slopes and the Valley bottom. A 3 meter (10 foot) skirt attached to the lower part of the Curtain visually completed the area between the thimbles and the ground.

The Valley Curtain, project took 28 months to complete. On August 11, 1972, 28 hours after completion, a gale estimated in excess of 100 kph (60 mph) made it necessary to start the removal.