About 50 people have been involved on this project, which has taken about eight months. Early this morning, paint-spattered construction workers were admiring the spectacle, leaning on the piazza’s marble pillars which Alex has replicated in his building. It’s been going up since Saturday, with the help of several 40ft trucks, a crane, three cherry-pickers and a veritable library of health and safety forms.
“It’s by far the most challenging project I’ve ever had,” Alex says. “We had to go through all the processes you’d go through building a full-size building.” The logistics are astronomical in relation to the concept. “The idea itself is actually quite simple. I don’t get too bogged down in concept or meaning or message. It is what it is. It’s playful and fun.”
For Alex, the problem-solving is part of the fun too. “It’s not so much about what, but about how. It’s when I realise how we’d create the illusion and how it would work visually that I become excited.”