How They say: "We got into working with architectural techniques and technologies by necessity. We founded Bompas & Parr in 2007 as a jelly company. We couldn't afford antique copper moulds, so we used the same CAD design programmes we'd used to design buildings. Since then, we've been on an adventure to explore the interrelationship between food and architecture. We've worked with Fairtrade building the Ziggurat of Flavour, a three-storey vertical labyrinth where visitors inhaled one of their five (pieces of fruit) a day through their lungs and eyeballs. We also flooded the roof of Selfridges to make an emerald-green boating lake and float-up bar for Truvia's Voyage of Discovery."
Inside Bompas and Parr
Our favourite food architecture is ...
The Cuccagna monuments made in 18th-century Naples. These were vast architectural structures made from food for epic civic feasts. Cuccagna monuments drew inspiration from the mythical Land of Cockaigne: a paradise on earth that was seen as a bounteous world centred on food where no-one goes hungry, grows old or works hard. For the birth of Charles VI, a garden was built from food with a large central fountain flowing with wine and mountain paths made of caciocavallo cheese. At a given signal, the populace was allowed to descend on the mountain and take what they liked.
By all accounts, it got pretty feral.
We're inspired by ...
PT Barnum is our hero. A consummate showman and swashbuckling provocateur.
You probably don't know this but ...
Two jelly facts for you: 1) Synchronised swimmers use gelatin to slick back their hair before a show. 2) Apparently, funeral technicians working on Princess Diana's death mask used it to make a vodka jelly of her face.