The rise of temporary urban projects in cities over the past decade is a welldocumented phenomenon and has increasingly gained visibility in the public discourse and in urban policy circles. Commentators in architecture, urban policy and the arts have used terms such as ‘pop-up’, ‘temporary’, ‘interim’ and ‘meanwhile’ to capture innovative forms of short-term use of urban spaces. From theatres to community spaces and homes, temporary urban practices have opened the temporary form to the operations of a variety of urban actors, from public institutions to private and third-sector organisations. New and established urban practitioners contributed to the emergence of small-scale projects such as short-term retail outlets, ephemeral art galleries and temporary community gardens, which have rapidly informed, as practices and policies, a ‘new vernacular’ of urban cultures in Europe and North America. Ideas of a ‘pop-up’ or ‘temporary’ city of voluntary small-scale projects such as community gardens and ephemeral cultural centres have rapidly become commonplace in London and other large Western cities and have been encouraged through cultural and urban policy.

In the UK, the polyvalence of signification that characterises the discourse of temporary urbanism is well represented by two quotes, which can be taken to exemplify two distinct moments. The first is from the newspaper The Times in an article titled ‘Art's great squatting revolution’, which begins as follows: