Boxing clever: Smurfit Kappa creates cardboard art

Company teamed up with artist Olivier Grossetête to recreate famous structures

The recreation of the Lebuinus church, using cardboard boxes from Smurfit Kappa, in the town of Deventer in the Netherlands.
The recreation of the Lebuinus church, using cardboard boxes from Smurfit Kappa, in the town of Deventer in the Netherlands.

Paper and packaging giant Smurfit Kappa teamed up with artist Olivier Grossetête to create art installations made solely out of boxes and corrugated board.

Marking the 1250th birthday of the town of Deventer in the Netherlands, Grossetête recreated the Lebuinus church – an ancient church from the town dating back to 768 AD.

The company’s plants in Zedek, Van Dam and Vandra in the Netherlands collaborated with the artist to design and build two towers of over 20 metres in height which required 4,000 corrugated boxes.

The structure, weighing 4,250kg was on show for the outdoor theatre festival – Deventer Op Stelten.

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A second collaboration with Grossetête was to celebrate the 2018 European Athletics championship for which the artists recreated Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. Some 1,600 boxes were used to create the arch which was on show in Glasgow as part of the event. The gate took five days to build and more than 450 people came together to assemble it.

Once dismantled, both structures are easily recycled because of the nature of the corrugated board, according to Smurfit Kappa.

Peter Hamilton

Peter Hamilton

Peter Hamilton is a contributor to The Irish Times specialising in business