“The Triumph of Art”, National Gallery

To celebrate the National Gallery’s 200th birthday in 2025, we proudly contributed over 100 stage boxes from our Box Library to support the grand finale of artist Jeremy Deller’s project, The Triumph of Art. An open-to-all, family-friendly festival on Saturday 26th July transformed Trafalgar Square into a lively hub of processions, parties and performances. 

The concluding day event brought together unique commissions from partner institutions across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which had previously hosted their own local gatherings during a year-long series of celebrations that championed the power of public art. Regional stories, folklore, music, dance and giant puppets were woven into a single day of festivities to demonstrate how local art fosters community and joy. 

Box Library Contribution

We provided structural infrastructure for one of the centrepieces, as part of our borrow-a-box circular economy initiative aimed at supporting temporary projects. Our modular stage boxes provided the main platform for the hand-built Gorsedd structure, an installation created by CAT volunteers and erected in the heart of Trafalgar Square. Our lightweight, flat-pack timber system was the ideal solution for the pop-up platform, allowing for rapid demountability in a high-traffic public space. 

Like a lot of our other Box Library community projects, our U-Builders dived head first into the festivities. We enjoyed dancing and socialising under the sun, while seeing our modular boxes serve as the literal stage for this vibrant cultural milestone. It was great to watch our U-Build boxes being used, enjoyed and supporting a day of movement and creativity.

We were proud to have shared our resources to support another arts and community initiative, which brought the National Gallery’s historic collection to life in a grand finale that celebrated togetherness. 

This project highlights our belief that architecture should be an open-access and sustainable tool for participation, where people can shape temporary spaces to unite communities.

If you have a project in mind that could be supported by U-Build Box Library, please enquire via our website.