Ephemeral architecture is the embodiment of all the layers comprising a city: from its history to its materiality to its individual and collective memory, linking performance to place. The mise en scène of temporary architecture turns the structure into a stage for performance, designed to be a hollow vessel for a series of scenes and experiences for the audience.

Drawing from Richard Sennett’s research Theatrum Mundi, on the connections between the craft of performance and city-making, this thesis has the intent of framing the city as a staging device, by investigating the potential of ephemeral urban stages – as sites where culture is consumed and displayed – in direct conversation with their permanent urban backstages – sites where culture is produced, developed, and rehearsed.

The district of Le Panier, home of the creative makers of the city, with its ever-changing topography and narrow streets that suddenly reveal generous public squares, creates an exciting performative environment and the perfect backdrop for a performance.

By analysing and deconstructing the typology of a theatre, a series of key components are identified – turning a theatre into a selective series of devices – and subsequently scattered around the neighbourhood, activating existing weak public spaces, and taking over the street, an already performative environment, and transforming it into a stage. These components become permanent interventions that serve the temporary performance as its urban backstages. This thesis argues that all components should not be held in one place as the city itself is a place of spectacle, rather they should be disseminated, enabling the performance within the whole district. The focus is on the landmark stage near the water – as the ephemeral intervention – and the set design and rehearsal workshop building – as the permanent proposal – to test a set of rules that could be applied to the subsequent construction of urban stages and backstages.

The resultant masterplan, as Sennet’s urban backstage and as part of the ensemble of performances that is the city, would serve as a series of permanent workshops that would enable and facilitate the production of ephemeral performances throughout the city, which ultimately becomes the backdrop of the performance.