The destruction of Ephemeral City

The destruction of Ephemeral City by Olivier Grossetête (2016)

There are cities that take millennia to build and centuries to crumble. And then there was the gloriously doomed cardboard metropolis at Sydney Festival 2016.

Conceived by French artist Olivier Grossetête, the Ephemeral City rose at Barangaroo Reserve in a frenzy of civic enthusiasm: 10,000 boxes, 140 kilometres of masking tape, and several thousand Sydneysiders suddenly qualified as structural engineers.

Towers wobbled, turrets leaned but for weeks, the city stood – improbably, perhaps – as a monument to packing tape and enthusiasm. Then, on cue, it met its maker. Ropes were hauled, walls buckled, and the crowd surged in with glee, gleefully stomping their own handiwork into submission. Urban planning has rarely been so democratic, or demolition so cathartic.