When Saltimbanco was created, it was estimated that migration to cities would continue to rise. This is the premise on which Saltimbanco is based. Cities are networks of inter-relationships, but they are also networks of paradoxes; the set design of Saltimbanco reflects the contradictions of the city where the powerful and the dispossessed live side by side. Anything is possible here and so the set is an urban space stripped to its most essential elements.

For Michel Crête, the production rests on the notion of "urbanity". When Franco Dragone put forward this concept as a potential theme for the production, the set designer shouldered the task of illustrating a city poles apart from the dark imagry of film productions such as Mad Max or Blade Runner. "This oppressive vision of the city of tomorrow strenghtened our will to create an urban environment where acrobats can manoeuver in liminosity and lightness."

However, Michel Crête had to explore various leads to create this impression of an etheral and luminous city. Purely by chance, he stumbled on a book on the evolution of materials in industrialized society. "The intellectual approach necessary to building a molecule or bulding the Pyramids is exactly the same," he explains. "Unquestionably, composite materials have led me into a fascinating world we must master if we wish to construct the cities of tomorrow."

The set design proposals were the center of a debate among the designers ent on the theme of "urbanity". Composite materials were the answer to their requirements, offering incredible resistance and uncommon charge capacities. The scale models themselves illustrated stunning properties and it was at this time that Michel Crête met with two engineers, one a leading expert in the field of composite materials, the other a specialist in the use of high-tech materials.