Sukkah City was an architectural design competition [1] and work of installation art planned in partnership with the Union Square Partnership for New York City's Union Square Park in September 2010.
Sukkah City was an architectural design competition [1] and work of installation art planned in partnership with the Union Square Partnership for New York City's Union Square Park in September 2010.
A sukkah is a structure described in the Torah and used in celebrating the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The Torah instructed the Children of Israel to commemorate their Exodus from Ancient Egypt by dwelling for seven days every autumn in temporary structures reminiscent of those in which they lived during their 40 years of wandering the desert before settling in the Land of Israel. Many Jews continue this practice. The Sukkah City competition and installation aimed to re-imagine the sukkah in contemporary design.[ citation needed ]
Journalists Joshua Foer [2] and Roger Bennett conceived the competition, and Reboot, an organization that promotes Jewish culture (and which Bennett co-founded), sponsored it. [3] [2]
A committee of art critics and architects selected 12 winners from a field of over 600 entries. [4] The twelve winning entries were constructed at Brooklyn's Gowanus Studio Space, and driven by truck to Union Square Park for display on September 19 and 20, 2010, from dawn to dusk. [5] The design chosen as "the people's choice" stood, starting on September 22, 2010, for the seven days of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. [6] Some entries were also selected for display at the Center for Architecture in New York City during September.[ citation needed ]
Sukkah City competition was to be documented in a book, Sukkah City: Radically Temporary Architecture for the Next 3000 Years. However, the book has yet to be published.[ citation needed ]
Sukkah City, a 2013 documentary film about the competition directed by Jason Hutt, is distributed by First Run Features and is available for purchase or rental on YouTube, Amazon, Kanopy and other sources.
The competition was launched with an announcement in May 2010. By June hundreds of architects, artists, and designers had entered. [2] The deadline for entries was August 1, 2010.[ citation needed ]
The jury included Rick Bell, Executive Director of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, Geoff Manaugh, a senior editor at Dwell magazine, architecture critic Paul Goldberger designer Ron Arad, architect Thom Mayne, winner of the Pritzker Prize, Michael Arad, Allan Chochinov, Matias Corea, Steven Heller, Natalie Jeremijenko, Maira Kalman, Thomas de Monchaux, Ada Tolla and Adam Yarinsky. [2] [7] The rabbinic adviser was Dani Passow. [8]
Foer expects the entries to range from "the latest in digital fabrication to handmade craft techniques." [7]
During the period when the 12 winners stood in the park, visitors were able to vote for their favorite design. [9]
The "People’s Choice Award" sukkah was entitled Fractured Bubble, and was designed by Henry Grosman and Babak Bryan. [10]
The contest's rules required entries to conform to Jewish law governing the sukkah:
According to competition organizer Joshua Foer:
The sukkah is a space to ceremonially practice homelessness.... In that sense it is an architecture of both memory and empathy—memory of the huts the Israelites dwelled in during their exodus from Egypt long ago, and empathy for those who live today without solid shelter over their heads. It goes up in the fall, just when it's no longer entirely comfortable to be outside. [11] [12]
One of the winning entries, the Sukkah of the Signs designed by architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, clad the sukkah structure with several hundred homeless signs collected from the homeless around the United States.
Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths, is a Torah-commanded holiday celebrated for seven days, beginning on the 15th day of the month of Tishrei. It is one of the Three Pilgrimage Festivals on which Israelites were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. Biblically an autumn harvest festival and a commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt, Sukkot’s modern observance is characterized by festive meals in a sukkah, a temporary wood-covered hut.
Shemini Atzeret is a Jewish holiday. It is celebrated on the 22nd day of the Hebrew month of Tishrei, usually coinciding with late September or early October. It directly follows the festival of Sukkot, which is celebrated for seven days; thus, Shemini Atzeret is literally the eighth day [of assembly]. It is a separate—yet connected—holy day devoted to the spiritual aspects of the festival of Sukkot. Part of its duality as a holy day is that it is simultaneously considered to be connected to Sukkot and a separate festival in its own right.
Vernacular architecture is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. It is not a particular architectural movement or style, but rather a broad category, encompassing a wide range and variety of building types, with differing methods of construction, from around the world, both historical and extant and classical and modern. Vernacular architecture constitutes 95% of the world's built environment, as estimated in 1995 by Amos Rapoport, as measured against the small percentage of new buildings every year designed by architects and built by engineers.
A Mitzvah tank is a vehicle used by the Orthodox Jewish practitioners of Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidism as a portable "educational and outreach center" and "mini-synagogue" to reach out to non-observant and alienated Jews. Mitzvah tanks have been commonplace on the streets of New York City since 1974. Today they are found all over the globe in countries where Chabad is active.
Dwell is a design and technology brand. It was launched with a magazine in October 2000 by CEO Lara Hedberg Deam with architecture and design critic Karrie Jacobs as its editor-in-chief. In August 2002, Jacobs left the magazine and was replaced by senior editor Allison Arieff. After Arieff, Sam Grawe held the position from 2006 to 2011, followed by Amanda Dameron from 2011 to 2017. William Hanley became the editor-in-chief in 2019.
Shigeru Ban is a Japanese architect, known for his innovative work with paper, particularly recycled cardboard tubes used to quickly and efficiently house disaster victims. Many of his notable designs are structures which are temporary, prefabricated, or incorporate inexpensive and unconventional materials in innovative ways. He was profiled by Time magazine in their projection of 21st-century innovators in the field of architecture and design.
S'chach is the Hebrew name for the material used as a roof for a sukkah, used on the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. It translates to "thatch" or "roof."
A hut is a small dwelling, which may be constructed of various local materials. Huts are a type of vernacular architecture because they are built of readily available materials such as wood, snow, ice, stone, grass, palm leaves, branches, clay, hides, fabric, or mud using techniques passed down through the generations.
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Storefront for Art and Architecture is an independent, non-profit art and architecture organization located in SoHo, Manhattan in New York City. The organization is committed to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art and design.
Emor is the 31st weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading and the eighth in the Book of Leviticus. The parashah describes purity rules for priests, recounts the holy days, describes the preparations for the lights and bread in the sanctuary, and tells the story of a blasphemer and his punishment. The parashah constitutes Leviticus 21:1–24:23. It has the most verses of any of the weekly Torah portions in the Book of Leviticus, and is made up of 6,106 Hebrew letters, 1,614 Hebrew words, 124 verses and 215 lines in a Torah Scroll.
Joshua Foer is a freelance journalist and author living in Brookline, Massachusetts, with a primary focus on science. He was the 2006 USA Memory Champion, which was described in his 2011 book, Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. He spoke at the TED conference in February 2012.
Sukkah is a tractate of the Mishnah and Talmud. Its laws are discussed as well in the Tosefta and both the Babylonian Talmud and Jerusalem Talmud. In most editions it is the sixth volume of twelve in the Order of Moed. Sukkah deals primarily with laws relating to the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. It has five chapters.
A sukkah or succah is a temporary hut constructed for use during the week-long Jewish festival of Sukkot. It is topped with branches and often well decorated with autumnal, harvest or Judaic themes.
Ron Arad, is a British-Israeli industrial designer, artist, and architectural designer.
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