Rushing to an appointment late Friday afternoon, I was stopped in my tracks by the art installation above in a window of the Toronto Dominion Centre. At least I thought it was an art installation. But take a closer look at the image below; Rub A Dub Dub, created by Diamond and Schmitt Architects, is one of more than two dozen sculptures built entirely of canned and packaged foods by Toronto-based engineering, architecture and design firms as part of an annual fundraiser for the Daily Bread Food Bank. Started in the United States in 1992, Canstruction came to Toronto in 1999 and has raised more than 400,000 pounds of canned goods for Daily Bread, to date.
I was lucky to see the sculptures when I did–they all came down yesterday (November 16) and the cans were shipped to Daily Bread for distribution to families and individuals in need. The connection to decorating may be tenuous but I couldn’t resist the novelty; click below to view some of the other fantastic Toronto entries.
Canstruction is a contest in which the participating firms compete for bragging rights to having designed and constructed the best installation. It’s a competition where everyone wins. Canstruction is now held in more than 125 cities across North America, 19 of them in Canada, including Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton (May 9-16, 2009), Regina, Winnipeg, Ottawa (February 6-22, 2009), Montreal and Fredericton.
The Canadian events are organized by SDA Canada, the Society for Design Administration Canada, representing administrative and managerial staff from the design industry. Visit the Canstruction website to see all of this year’s entries.
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