Sweden's festive gingerbread competition

These are gingerbread houses. Lots of people make them at Christmas. Gingerbread houses are popular in Sweden.

ArkDes is a Swedish museum. It has a gingerbread house competition every year. ArkDes wants people to think about making good houses. Teacher Sara Sandell says it’s fun.

Sara Sandell: "Architecture can feels a bit advanced and hard for people, but everybody have a relation to, to houses and architecture. So it, I think, gingerbread houses is a way to, to make it fun. And it’s a tradition that a lot of people do yearly at home, they bake together, family and friends. So this is a way to do it in a, in a grander scale."

The idea for gingerbread houses is very old. It came from the children’s story Hansel and Gretel.

The competition has one important rule. Everything in the gingerbread house has to be food. You can’t use anything else. The competition teaches people how to plan a building.

Sara Sandell: "A lot of things go into baking. The, it’s planning and thinking ahead how you want pieces, materials, how they work together. So it’s a lot of things that, that, that goes with architecture in the design but also it’s, it’s fun, and everybody loves gingerbreads houses, right."

The competition has different prizes. There’s a prize for architects, designers and chefs. Then there’s a prize for children, and one for adults. Museum visitors can choose a winner too. There’s a prize for the visitors’ favourite.

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