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The impressive gingerbread creations on view at the Seaport right now may look like any other saccharine Christmastime display, but they have a much deeper meaning. This gingerbread village offers a model for how our warming world can deal with climate change.
Fifty NYC architects and designers worked to create The Gingerbread City, and it's on view at The Seaport through January 7 with a lighthouse, a bridge, a stadium and lots more to discover. Tickets for the exhibition at 25 Fulton Street cost $18/adult and can be purchased here.
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Designers used gingerbread, frosting and candy to create houses, train stations, bridges, airports, museums and parks on the theme “Water in Cities.” The display features five distinct zones: Desert Landscape, Urban Floodplain, Canal City, Frozen Landscape and Underwater + Floating City. Participants were asked to think about how we can design and build water-sensitive cities and protect this vital resource.
Highlights include "Cloudtopia Stadium" built on the urban floodplain and formed out of a cloud and "Sugar Lake Opera" looking out over a sugar lake created by stormwater run-off from the building's roofs. In the desert area, there's the Des(s)ert Mender dam, which brings life-giving water to the arid terrain. Meanwhile, in the frozen landscape, see a floating house project that emphasizes supplying clean water in a site vulnerable to flooding. Trains glide along the landscape adding to the visual spectacle.
It’s the U.S. debut of the U.K.-based Museum of Architecture’s popular gingerbread exhibition; they’re also presenting a display in London, which looks equally as cool. The museum strives to connect the public with architecture and design in fun and exciting ways and inspire conversations about cities and how we live in them.
"We cannot wait to welcome people into The Gingerbread City and show them what some of New York’s leading architects and designers have created for this first-ever showing of the exhibition outside of the UK. And, what better place than the Seaport to be thinking about the future of New York and its relationship with water with our Water in Cities theme," Museum of Architecture founder Melissa Woolford said in a press release.
Some of the designers include SPG Architects, Kai Wilson-Charles, MeierPartners, New York City Housing Authority, Rockwell Group and David Ling Architect with Soo Yoon Chung.
If you want to create your own gingerbread masterpiece, the Seaport is hosting daily workshops with iconic New York bakery Balthazar. Workshop experiences start at $85.
The Gingerbread City is one of three eye-catching gingerbread displays on view in NYC this year. There's also GingerBread Lane—the world's largest gingerbread village—which is free to visit at Chelsea Market. Plus, don't miss Gingerbread NYC: The Great Borough Bake-Off at the Museum of the City of New York, which features local landmarks created as confections.