Just like the real thing, Dundee’s cardboard Royal Arch is now just a memory.
The icon was recreated in Dundee on Saturday – before hundreds of children gleefully demolished it for a second time.
But while demolishing the original arch to make way for the Tay Road Bridge remains a sore point in Dundee’s history, there was only delight in the chaos as the recreated structure came crashing down as planned on Sunday.
The People’s Tower project invited people to help create a replica of the arch in Slessor Gardens on Saturday using 1200 cardboard boxes held together with masking tape.
Work started on Saturday morning and the top of the arch was soon visible. The structure then had to be hoisted in the air while additional levels were added underneath until it stood nearly 17 metres tall.
By Saturday afternoon the cardboard arch, weighing around 1200 kilograms, had been completed.
Images were projected on to the structure on Saturday evening.
But French artist Olivier Grossetete’s work was not complete until the building, which had been painstakingly designed on computer, was destroyed.
Volunteers pulled the arch down at 1pm on Sunday before hundreds of children were allowed to run on to it and trample it down into nothing.
People thought it was crazy but I like the fact that it shows with a little creativity amazing things can be achieved.
The brief reappearance of the arch has even sparked calls for a permanent structure to be built in Slessor Gardens.
An online petition demanding the rebuilding of the arch has received more than 280 signatures.
Producer Claire Dow, who first suggested bringing the French artist to Dundee and has been working on the project since last year, said she was delighted with the huge turnout on both days.
She said: “This is what we wanted to see – people coming together and having a good time.
“We were nervous about footfall. When we were setting up the French guys were saying there is nothing here but traffic but I suppose ‘if you build it, they will come’,” she said.
Grossetete’s team of 10 workers have carried out similar projects around the globe but have rarely encountered such an emotional response.
Team member Dirk Dhont said: “People were hugging us and saying they were so grateful to us for doing it.
“Each box weighs about 1kg so the whole things weighs about 1,200kg. It is quite heavy but we had enough volunteers to help us build it.
“The atmosphere has been great and we have to doff our caps to Claire for organising it.”
Dundee City Council leisure and arts director Stewart Murdoch said the
People’s Arch was “a great statement of our cultural ambitions”.
He said: “People thought it was crazy but I like the fact that it shows with a
little creativity amazing things can be achieved.”
He said the plans originated from Dundee’s bid to be UK City of Culture.
“As part of the bid, ‘We Dundee’ was launched to collect people’s favourite things about Dundee and the Royal Arch kept cropping up,” he said.
“A lot of people, when asked about Dundee, remembered the Royal Arch so we always knew we wanted to do some sort of homage to it.”
Lesley McEwan helped tape in some of the boxes as the Royal Arch was brought back to life on Saturday.
She said: “I have some memories of it but I was only 12 when it was demolished.
“They should never have taken it down in the first place.”
See all of our Royal Arch coverage from the weekend here.
