Traditional Sukkot Reinterpreted at Union Square in NY

SUKKAH CITY: Mayor Bloomberg (C) announces the winner of the Sukkah City design competition on Monday Sept. 20 at Union Square Park. Long Island City architects Babek Bryan and Henry Grosman (L) won the competition with their entry 'Fractured Bubble' Sukkah City co-founders Roger Bennett and Joshua Foer stand at right. Tim McDevitt/The Epoch Times

NEW YORK—During their exodus from Egypt 3,000 years ago, the Israelites dwelled in temporary shelters known as sukkot (sukkah, in singular). Now, as a tradition, sukkot are erected each fall to celebrate Sukkot, a harvest-themed week-long Jewish festival. This year, artists offering new versions of the transient dwellings made their way to Union Square for an event titled “Sukkah City” on Sunday and Monday.

Sukkah City is an international design competition challenging designers, artists and architects to newly reinterpret the structures while following traditional rules. The contest is put on by Jewish cultural organization Reboot. Contestants were encouraged to “Propose radical possibilities for traditional design constraints in a contemporary urban site.”

“I’m very impressed with the skill and the levels of meaning they have been able to tease out of these structures,” said Josh Yuter, a rabbi from the Lower East Side. Commenting on one piece, Yuter said: “I like the cocoon, and how it provides a space for meditation and contemplation while being protected.”

Reboot Executive Director Lou Cove, described the response to the competition as “amazing from the start.” Reboot received 1,700 registrations on their website to enter the competition, and from that 600 designs were submitted from 70 countries, of which 12 were selected to be built in Brooklyn and brought to Union Square on the weekend.

Only one sukkah didn’t make the trip intact. The winner of the competition was selected by voters at Union Square by paper ballots as well as by voters on Reboot’s website, and on New York Magazine’s website.

The designs were varied and included a slick glass-walled structure topped with a huge cedar log, in keeping with the tradition that the roof of the hut must be made from organic material that has been removed from the ground. The piece simply titled Log was created by designers Kyle May and Scott Abrahams of New York. Inside the glass “hut” are two simple objects, a candle and a table, both suspended from the massive log.

Other designs focused on the context of temporary shelters in an urban setting. Sukkah of the Signs by designers Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello of Oakland, Calif. was constructed from cardboard signs purchased from destitute individuals across the United States. The hand-written signs scrawled bore familiar slogans asking for help or stating political views. The structure is a reminder of both the temporary nature of the sukkah, as well as the many people across the country that still reside in temporary dwellings.

An interactive entry, designed by the company tinder, tinker from Sagle, Idaho was built entirely of wooden construction shims, normally used to fill gaps and level uneven floors. A box of the humble building material was available next to the structure and exhibit visitors were allowed to add the slim wooden slats to complete the hut.

The rules that govern the structures informed and challenged the designers in their creations. Some of the design guidelines prescribed by arcane tradition and outlined by Reboot included:

—A whale may be used to make a sukkah’s walls. Also a living elephant (note: neither whales nor elephants were used in the winning designs).
—If the sukkah has only two complete walls, and they face each other, a third wall of at least four handbreadths must be within three handbreadths of one of the complete walls.
—At night, one must be able to see the stars from within the sukkah, through the roof.
—A sukkah may be built on top of a camel (note: no camels were used, either).
—The sukkah must draw the eye up to its roof, and to the sky beyond.

On Monday evening Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined Sukkah City co-founders Roger Bennett and Joshua Foer at Union Square to announce “The People’s Choice” winner of the design competition. Local architects Henry Grosman and Babek Bryan from Long Island City, Queens won with their entry, Fractured Bubble.

“The sukkah is a bubble, ephemeral and transient,” said the winning team. The structure of Fractured Bubble is made of plywood, marsh grass and twine. Its form is a sphere fractured into three sections and the roof material is made of an invasive species of marsh grass harvested from Corona, Queens.

The competition will be documented in a forthcoming book titled Sukkah City: Radically Temporary Architecture for the Next Three Thousand Years.

Fractured Bubble will remain on display in Union Square for the week-long festival of Sukkot.