Gingerbread Competition

This years annual Gingerbread House competition in Sweden has been capturing people's imaginations. The contest was held in the Architecture museum in Stockholm. The theme for this year's competition is ecological and economic sustainability.
Gingerbread houses of all shapes and sizes competed in the annual gingerbread house competition. For the eighteenth year, professionals and novices, young and old could take part in the competition. There are five different categories for contestants: architects and bakers, children up to twelve years, the jury's special prize, the audience's prize and "all the others that bake". There were more than sixty houses for the jury to choose from.

[Lars Friden, Competition Organizer]:
It's a playful and nice way to get children to both interested in architecture and then the relationship between architecture and ecology and economy in this world as well.

The winners of this year's competition in the Architects and Bakers category were students from the Stockholm Royal Institute of Technology. Their entry is called "A carrot is necessary to clean the dirty factories". The jury was unanimous in its decision, describing the work as "dramatic, forceful and enticing". Jurists even went so far as to say it was a suitable house for the people attending next year's United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen.

[Freja Hillert, Student]:
Our general idea with our gingerbread house was to very clearly and with a comic touch try to show how you can change the dirty industrial buildings of our presence to a clean environment.

The audience's prize went to a real estate firm, with a more nostalgic gingerbread house. The entry was made by Cecilia Lovdahl and Bjorn Hakansson

[Cecilia Lovdahl, Baker]:
One of the thoughts was that, maybe an echo of an idyllic past, another time when we lived closer to nature and also something that is cheaper and more sustainable maybe.

The base of the house is allowed to be a maximum of fifty by fifty centimeters. The jury also takes into account the object's edibility when deciding a winner. Practicality was not necessarily an issue. Fridén said the competition had not come up with any great new ideas on ecological sustainability.

[Lars Friden]:
I don't think we received any really great ideas about ecology and how to solve the situation. We had quite a lot of outdoor toilets and windmills of various sorts and that kind of things.

Instead the jury had focused on creativity and imagination when deciding the various winners. The first prize in the under twelve competition went to a local Stockholm school's first and 2nd grade class.

[Grade School Winner]:
When the competition is over, we're going to eat this gingerbread rocket.

She and her friends will have to wait a while though, since the houses will be on display until January 6.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• ntd
• gingerbread competition
• sweden
• stockholm
• bakery