About World’s Tallest Filing Cabinet
Burlington has a monument to paperwork. Artist Bren Alvarez created the World’s Tallest Filing Cabinet in 2002 by stacking 38 metal filing-cabinet drawers vertically until an object normally found beside an office desk became part of the city skyline.
The number of drawers is not random. Each represents one year between 1965 and 2002, a period associated with the planning and paperwork surrounding Burlington’s long-debated Southern Connector transportation project. Instead of putting the documents themselves on display, Alvarez turned the idea of accumulated bureaucracy into a literal tower of filing cabinets.
The sculpture rises more than forty feet and looks intentionally utilitarian. There is no ornate pedestal or polished finish. The familiar metal drawers simply continue upward far beyond any reasonable office requirement, rusting and weathering in the open air.
The cabinet was later relocated within Burlington’s South End and now stands near Flynn Avenue. It remains one of those rare public artworks whose joke can be understood instantly: if a project creates enough paperwork, eventually somebody might need a filing cabinet taller than a building.