Philippe Petit

Famous french high-wire artist

Author of Creativity: The Perfect Crime

“Improvisation is empowering because it welcomes the unknown.”

English · French

Philippe Petit, universal poet laureate of the high wire, was born in France and took his first steps on the wire at age 16. He learned everything by himself while being expelled from five different schools. Performing on five continents, he taught himself Spanish, German, Russian, and English, and developed a keen appreciation for architecture and engineering. Using his wire to extend the boundaries of theater, music, writing, poetry and drawing, he has become an inimitable high wire artist.

On August 7, 1974, Petit overcame seemingly insurmountable challenges to achieve the artistic crime of the century. A daring idea originating from an article about the Twin Towers at the dentist’s office, Philippe Petit walked a high wire illegally stretched between the rooftops of the World Trade Center. Making eight crossings over the course of an hour, a quarter mile above the sidewalks of New York, Petit’s book, To Reach the Clouds (re-titled Man on Wire in paperback), recounts that adventure. His spellbinding act was also the basis of the 2009 Academy Award-wining documentary film, Man on Wire, as well as the 2015 feature film, The Walk, to be directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Petit.

Petit’s latest book, Creativity: The Perfect Crime, is a new manifesto on the creative process from a master of the impossible, revealing new and unconventional ways of going about the artistic endeavor. His other book, Why Knot? How to Tie More than Sixty Ingenious, Useful, Beautiful, Life-Saving, and Secure Knots! was released in April 2013.

In the nearly 40 years since the World Trade Center walk, Petit has performed on the high wire more than 100 times around the world in such locations as Paris, Tokyo, Frankfurt, Jerusalem and New York City where he has been an artist-in-residence at The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine for more than 30 years.

Philippe Petit is the recipient of the first Action Maverick Award; the New York Historical Society Award; the prestigious James Parks Morton Interfaith Award; and the Byrdcliffe Award. He is a laureate of the Foundation de la Vocation par Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, and the French Ministry of Culture bestowed upon him the title of Chevalier des Arts & des Lettres. Petit was a featured speaker at the 2012 TED Conference.

Petit’s new high wire project is the Rapa Nui Walk, a walk on an inclined cable set on Easter Island in homage to the Rapa Nui and their giant stone statues known as Moai. Among his most cherished goals is the continuation of his first series of high wire master classes, Tightrope! An Exploration into the Theatre of Balance.

In addition to walking the high wire, Philippe Petit writes, draws, performs close-up magic, practices lock-picking and 18th century timber framing, plays chess, studies French wine and was recently sighted bullfighting in Peru. An internationally known speaker and hard at work on a new one-man stage show titled Wireless! Philippe Petit Down to Earth, he gives lectures and workshops on creativity and motivation.

Creativity: The Perfect Crime

Since well before his epic 1974 walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, Philippe Petit had become an artist who answered first and foremost to the demands of his craft — not only on the high wire, but also as a magician, street juggler, visual artist and writer. A born rebel like many creative people, his outlaw sensibility has spawned a unique approach to the creative process, making him an inspiration to all who dare to dream of the seemingly impossible.

Inviting others to enter into the experience of creating, Petit discloses, with characteristic enthusiasm, irreverence and originality, new and unconventional ways of going about the artistic endeavor. From generating and shaping ideas to practicing and problem-solving to pulling off the “coup” itself, the strategies and insights Petit shares will resonate with performers of every stripe and also with seemingly non-creative people in search of fresh ways of tackling the challenges and possibilities of everyday existence. Get a glimpse into the remarkable mind of someone who accomplishes creativity by thinking and doing differently than others.

On the High Wire: An Unusual Approach to Risk Management

Sharpening the Mind: The Intellectual Risk & Architecture of Rebellion

Don't Be Afraid: Creativity, Tenacity, Motivation & the Pursuit of Excellence

Creativity for the Fanatic: A Confession by an Outlaw

Creativity: The Perfect Crime

In the vein of The Creative Habit and The Artist’s Way, a manifesto on the creative process from a master of the impossible.

Since well before his epic (and illegal) 1974 walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, Philippe Petit had become an artist who answered first to the demands of his craft—and not just on the high wire, but also as a magician, street juggler, visual artist, builder, and writer. He was a rebel and an autodidact, cultivating the attitudes, resources, and techniques to tackle even seemingly impossible feats. His outlaw sensibility spawned a unique approach to the creative process—an approach he shares, with characteristic enthusiasm, irreverence, and originality, in Creativity: The Perfect Crime.

With the reader as his accomplice, Petit reveals fresh and unconventional ways of going about the artistic endeavor, from generating and shaping ideas to practicing, problem-solving, and ultimately pulling off the “coup” itself—executing a finished work. His strategies and insights will resonate with performers of every stripe (actors, musicians, dancers), practitioners of the non-performing arts (writers, artists), professionals in search of new ways of meeting challenges, and individuals simply engaged in the art of living creatively.

Creativity: The Perfect Crime

Why Knot?: How to Tie More than Sixty Ingenious, Useful, Beautiful, Lifesaving, and Secure Knots!

On August 7, 1974, Philippe Petit stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between the New York World Trade Center’s twin towers, where he performed for nearly an hour. During this history-making walk, and many others throughout his celebrated career, knots have always been indispensable components—the guardian angels protecting his life in the sky.
After years of hands-on research, Philippe presents Why Knot?, a guide to tying his essential knots. Philippe’s own practical sketches illustrate original methods and clear, clever tying instructions. Photographs in which special knots were used during spectacular high-wire walks, quirky knot trivia, personal anecdotes, helpful tips, magic tricks, and special tying challenges ensure that, if you’re not already nuts for knots, Petit will transform you into a knot aficionado.

Why Knot?: How to Tie More than Sixty Ingenious, Useful, Beautiful, Lifesaving, and Secure Knots!

To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers

An artist of the air re-creates his six-year plot to pull off an act of incomparable beauty and imagination

One late-summer day, a feat of unimaginable audacity was perpetrated on the twin towers of the World Trade Center. The year was 1974. A hundred thousand people gathered on the ground to watch in awe as twenty-four-year-old high wire artist Philippe Petit made eight crossings between the all-but-completed towers, a quarter mile above the earth, over the course of nearly an hour.

Petit's achievement made headlines around the world. Yet few who saw or heard about it realized that it was the fulfillment of a dream he had nurtured for six years, rekindling it each time it was in danger of expiring. His accomplices were a motley crew of foreigners and Americans, who under Petit's direction had conpired, connived, labored, argued, rehearsed, and improvised to make possible an act of unsurpassed aerial artistry.

In this visually and verbally stunning book, Petit tells for the first time the dramatic story of this history-making walk, from conception and clandestine planning to the performance and its aftermath. The account draws on Petit's journals, which capture everything from his budgets to his strategies for rigging a high wire in the dead of night between two of the most secure towers in the world. It is animated by photographs taken by two of Petit's collaborators, and by his own wonderfully evocative sketches and unquenchable humor.

To Reach the Clouds: My High Wire Walk Between the Twin Towers