London-based pop-up museum The Museum of Architecture has installed a city of gingerbread buildings, bridges and boats by local architecture studios at an exhibit in New York‘s Seaport district.

Called the Gingerbread City, the exhibit showcases a variety of gingerbread housing typologies and infrastructure based on the architecture of five distinct regions, including a desert landscape, an urban floodplain, and an underwater environment.

Top: Gingerwood Dam by Starr Whitehouse Landscape Architects and Planners. Above: Marsh Meadow Bridge by Marvel

A handful of New York architecture offices and institutions including Archi-tectonics, Nina Rappaport, Robert A.M. Stern Architects and the New York City Housing Authority baked and created models for the exhibit, which asked participants “to think about how we can design and build water-sensitive cities and protect this vital resource”.

London-based office Madeline Kessler Architecture and Tibbalds Planning and Urban Design created a master plan for the landscape, which included a program for each plot, as well as height restrictions.

The exhibit brought together local architecture practices to create a gingerbread city. Photo of the Gingerbread City Eco-Housing Authority by NYCHA

Highlights included the Cloudtopida Stadium by MeierPartners, which features a central “stadium” made of a mass of glowing orbs.

Gummy bear guests filter into its doors, while others sit around campfires outside or sledge down small, sugary hills.

The exhibition consists of different biomes. Photo of Cloudtopida Stadium by MeierPartners

“MeierPartners’ prompt is a stadium for sporting events and concerts situated within an urban floodplain,” said the office.

“Embracing the site conditions, the building is formed out of a cloud as a means to embody the water cycle within the realm of architecture.”

After periods of heavy torrential rain, rainbow bridges are formed, creating paths that bring visitors through a misty landscape and into the luminous, expansive stadium.”

The city is comprised of several different zones, including a desert and underwater, which focuses on water as a resource. Photo of the Hive by Vocon

Design studio Marvel created a curving bridge for its plot, made of pavers of gingerbread lined with marshmallows.

A marshland made of gummy bears, icing, candy canes and pretzel trees surrounds the bridge, which connects two wetland sites that neighbour the plot.

“Our office has architects and landscape architects,” Marvel associate Sharon Kim told Dezeen. “We wanted something everyone could contribute to, so with the bridge, it has structure, it has landscape. “

“We wanted to make sure everyone felt like we were all equally providing input. Even though it’s gingerbread.”

Of the process, Kim and Marvel associate Ishita Gaur explained they used the studio’s office to bake the gingerbread and construct the model over a period of six evenings.

Participants built gingerbread bridges, boats, buildings and more for the exhibit

“Gingerbread is not forgiving,” said Kim of working with the material.

The Gingerbread City was conceptualised by museum founder Melissa Woolford. The museum focuses on creating events for the public to engage with architecture.

Other gingerbread structures include a checkered gingerbread house built in a California modernist style by Kelly Wearstler in 2021.

The Gingerbread City is on view at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City from 17 Nov to 7 Jan, 2023. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

The photography is by Leandro Justen

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