Canstruction NYC 2013 at Winter Garden through February 11!

February 6, 2013

Every year since 1993, Canstruction NYC has brought together some of the city's finest architecture, engineering, and design firms to construct elaborate, often playful structures made entirely from cans of food.

At the end of the show's run all of the food used in these crazily elaborate sculptural marvels is donated to City Harvest for distribution to local shelters, soup kitchens, senior homes, etc. Canstruction NYC is usually held in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, for pretty obvious reasons, but last November's 20th annual edition of Canstruction was postponed due to everyone working to recover from/rebuild after Hurricane Sandy. So even though the calendar (and the temperature) says February, the 20th annual Canstruction NYC is currently in full swing in Battery Park City's World Financial Center, with more than 100,000 cans of veggies, soups, and, especially it seems, tunafish, put to excellent use in 25 crazily elaborate artworks. (CAN's Best Friend, by Gensler & WSP Flack + Kurtz, above)

Canstruction Arts in World Financial Center

Like last year, Canstruction NYC 2013 is being held in the World Financial Center's soaring, palm-treed Winter Garden, though rather than spreading the pieces around the space, the majority of sculptures have been assembled in a grid right in the center of things, on the main floor of the atrium. And while this probably makes for quick and easy lunchtime viewing for area workers (and likely promoted a good deal of inter-firm camaraderie among the interns during construction), personally we think lining them all up like that takes a bit of the fun, a bit of the serendipitous discovery, out of the event. That said, there are still enough inventive constructions, clever engineering feats, and terrible puns involving the word "cans" to put a trip to Canstruction onto your to-do list for the next week. If you live in one of Glenwood's downtown luxury rental buildings, just stroll on over. If you're coming from uptown, bring the kids and combine the can-viewing with burgers from the least crowded Shake Shack in town, just a couple blocks away (there's also the excellent stadium-seating megaplex right there as well).

Food Can Structures with Style

Anyway, Canstruction NYC 2013 will be on display at the World Financial Center's Winter Garden through February 11. The website states that the hours are 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. daily, but since as far as we know the Winter Garden doesn't close, we're not sure how that's enforced. Anyway, here are a few more of our favorites from the exhibition. (Topping Hunger, by Leslie E. Robertson Associates)